[00:00:05] Melissa Traverse: Hello, and thank you for joining. I am Melissa Traverse, Director of Community here at BevNET & Nosh, and I am pleased to welcome you to the NonBase podcast. Don't forget to check out nonbase.com, BevNET's platform built for the CPG community. It's where you can find episodes of this podcast, our new CPG education learning platform, and so much more. Oftentimes in CPG, the wins get all the attention. Landing a region, seeing your product on shelf, hitting a milestone you've been working toward for months. Those moments are exciting, but oftentimes they're really just the beginning. What comes next is a lot of work that doesn't always get the same kind of attention. Today we are talking about that side of the journey, the practical work it takes to stay on shelf after you get in, the decisions founders have to make, and the lessons that come from working inside the retailer every day. Joining me are two people who understand this from different angles. We have Cecilia Rios Morita, co-founder of Jazz, who is currently in 95 Whole Foods stores through a special program and is working to turn that into long-term placement and smart expansion. We also have Jamari Pinkard, co-founder of Hella Cocktail Company. He has lived the full path from local placement to national distribution and has a clear view of what actually drives growth inside Whole Foods Market. So today we are breaking down what founders should expect, what to watch for, and how to build in a way that holds up once the early winds fade and the real work begins. Thank you so much, Cecilia and Jamari. This is going to be a fantastic discussion. I'm so thrilled to have you both here on the Non-Based Podcast. So let's start off with an introduction from a brand that probably needs no introduction. Helicoctail Company. Jamari, please tell us the story of Helicoctail. I always think of you and Helicoctail as one of the original non-ALC beverages. You guys have been doing what you do for a while now, and I feel like you really paved the way for so many of the non-ALC brands who are in our ecosystem. Can you tell us a little bit about how the brand was started and what the journey has been like so far?
[00:02:23] Jamari Pinkard: Sure. So glad to be here. Thank you, Melissa. And it's nice to be in company with you here as well, Cecilia. Wow. The Hella Cocktail Company. Definitely feel like one of the OGs in the non-ALC space and all the other kind of cocktail, you know, cocktail tangential, you know, elevated space as well. Our journey is very simple. Think about, you know, we like to start the conversation when we're with buyers or anyone And a demo, you know, three guys in a garage, but it was myself, Eddie and Tobin, making cocktail bidders for fun to one ups each other in their apartment in Brooklyn, right and it wasn't about building a company or building legacy or any of those things, it was just one ups each other. and playing around. And so we definitely effed around and found out, right, what this journey is all about. And thinking through what we enjoyed and how we wanted to pull up to the bar or restaurant and be included in the journey and included in the ceremony of cocktailing. And at that time, you know, we're not any guys who wear handlebar mustaches or, you know, anything like that. And so we didn't feel welcome. And so we started building our own kind of proverbial table around the cocktail assortment. We really honed in on this idea of wanting choice around that moment of the beverage. And so we started making things that kind of lean into different parts of the customer engagement curve, if you will. And so our bitters were our first foray into the space, a flavorful infusion of spices, fruit, and bitter root that are used to make the quintessential old fashioned, as well as a million other cocktails. And so back then it was kind of like our way to be hobbyist, but be engaged. And that journey has obviously taken all kinds of shapes and forms over the years. And as we've listened to the customers who were with us from the beginning, as they've went through their own metamorphosis evolution in the cocktail space. And so, you know, now we make all kinds of things along the spectrum from the bitters all the way to the non-alcoholic bitters and sodas, which are a sparkling aperitif that we think is delicious at any time of day.
[00:04:18] Melissa Traverse: Absolutely. And how long has Hella Cocktail been around?
[00:04:22] Jamari Pinkard: So we officially started in 2012, and I think we put our business hats on around 2016 when we went from bidders to bidders and cocktail mixers. And so depending on how you look at the company, 2012 was the kind of establishment date. But I think we got really serious as a hobby after it was a hobby in 2016, 2017.
[00:04:41] Melissa Traverse: And because we're talking about Whole Foods Market today, when did you launch with Whole Foods Market? You guys are global now, I think, right?
[00:04:49] Jamari Pinkard: Correct, correct. Yeah, back in 20, I want to say 2017, after a ton of trial and error, we found ourselves in the New York region of Whole Foods with our bidders assortment through an old school, cool, no longer with us distributor called Gotham Artisanal and a guy named Jim Pickett, who had an amazing ginger beer company called Pickett's Ginger Beer. And he had a set that was in Whole Foods for cocktail condiments. And so we were part of that set initially in 2017, 2018. And so for a few years, we sat in that set and tried to figure out whether or not it had legs. And it did for quite some time. While we worked on our innovation in a non-ALK space in 2018, 2019, we tried to make sure that Shelf resonated, had tons of demos and had legs in the New York City region while we proved out the bigger thesis, which was around the Intel Pentium chip of bidders in a broader sense. And so I can tell you the story about how we landed that national account at some point in this conversation. But originally, we were in the condiment shelf on the mixer side when they were testing out whether or not it had legs in the stores.
[00:06:05] Melissa Traverse: You're just the beverage founder to be chatting with us today. So thanks again for joining us. Cecilia, please tell us all about Jazz. It's an alcohol-free, Latin-inspired functional cocktail, but it's so much more than that. Can you tell us a little bit about why you started the business, when you started the business, and how things have been going since you launched?
[00:06:28] SPEAKER_01: Like you said, it's Latin inspired. It's rooted in Latin American flavors. But not only that, it's really rooted in the rituals and celebration that exists in Latin American culture. I created jazz because I actually come from a liquor background many, many years ago. I like to think of it as my past life. I was a mezcal entrepreneur right in the middle of the mezcal boom and spent many, many wonderful years working with agave producers and distributors here in the U.S., really building out that category. And in 2018, I decided I took a very personal decision to take a step back from the business and quit drinking altogether. It really was kind of like that moment of just inward introspection and deciding how I wanted to live my life. And I realized that alcohol was something that for me very personally was just holding me back. And so when I quit drinking, I learned that drinking was a big part of my life, but it didn't really define who I was. I was still a very outgoing person. I was still someone who wanted to you know, meet up with friends, go to a bar and and just the act of being at a bar was it was a ritual that I really enjoyed. And and so this was back in like 2018 19. And and there were really no options for people like myself who wanted to still be part of these occasions, and and enjoy a proper drink, whether it has alcohol or not. And So I partnered with a really good friend of mine, also from the industry. One day I approached her and I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this beverage that's not alcoholic, but that still has all this rich culture, this heritage, all the things I used to love about talking about when I talked about mezcal. And so together, we came together to create JAZ. JAZ means Juntos a Saborear in Spanish. It's an acronym, J-A-S. And Juntos a Saborear is really kind of like that act of savoring together. We believe that beverages, especially you know like the ones that great beverages like like hella cocktail and all the great beverages that exist today. They're made to bring us together right like we all revolve around the table during Christmas time and special occasions and And it's really that act of bringing us together through that flavor. So we created these cocktails, just really bold, Latin-inspired Paloma, Mojito. We have a Carajillo that's coming. And we have a lot of fun with it. It really is just about being bold in the way that you live your life. And not because you're not drinking doesn't mean you can't have fun.
[00:09:06] Melissa Traverse: And you really have made such a fantastic product and I can absolutely see your background in the liquor world. I think sometimes it's, and with both of you, you know, I think sometimes it's difficult to find a non-alcoholic replacement for an alcoholic beverage, but both of you have done such a great job with that. So congratulations on that. And Cecilia, please tell us a little bit about your Whole Foods Market partnership. So this was a temporary program that landed you in 95 stores. Can you tell us which regions they were? what the program was, and how did that all play out?
[00:09:40] SPEAKER_01: Very fortunately, I got a chance to meet my Whole Foods buyer at BevNET last year. So it was really a great moment for me to finally come and like to connect with someone from Whole Foods. We've been working on this for a while now, trying to get retail placements. And so when I met our buyer, we talked about the different ways that exist to be able to reach the shelf. And so one of those was through this kind of promo opportunity where you get to You come on the shelf during a promo month and we work with the buyer to decide which regions are best for us. Initially, we had planned to launch in Texas since we are a Texas brand. We really want to develop our market locally first. We were set to launch in 35 stores, but then that opportunity grew and expanded into 95 stores across Southern California, Texas, Arizona, and Las Vegas. And it's really just a great opportunity to kind of get your foot in the door and see how consumers react to your product. And so we've been preparing for this all year. From the moment we met our buyer in December, the promo finally launched in August of 2025. And it's one month of the promo where you get mandated on the shelf. And then after that, it's up to us to maintain that placement. Just a really fun opportunity testing ground to understand what's moving the needle, how we can approach our consumers, how we can invite our consumers to go into the stores. Everything from online marketing strategies to demo programs, just being in the stores every single weekend, getting to meet the consumers where they are, but also working with the buyers at every individual store. And so we've had a chance to meet incredible people from the Whole Foods team and really show them why we deserve to be on the shelf.
[00:11:32] Melissa Traverse: And when did you launch with this special program at Whole Foods? When did you find yourselves on shelf?
[00:11:38] SPEAKER_01: It was August of this year. three months ago.
[00:11:42] Melissa Traverse: And how many stores are you still in?
[00:11:46] SPEAKER_01: I think we lost like four.
[00:11:48] Melissa Traverse: That's amazing.
[00:11:49] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. It's not bad. Yeah. It's, um, and, and they were one of them in our defense, they closed the store. So that's a location that no longer exists. And then the other two are just like really tiny stores that, that they're like, okay, we can't really do anything else. Like the planogram is set. Like we have to make room for the things that are on, on the, in the planogram. But this way, it's just such a great opportunity to develop those relationships with the people on the floor and learn in a way that, since we're not on the planogram, we're not really kind of like forced to meet certain targets yet. And so we're tracking our progress, we're seeing what is actually kind of like week by week, what's moving the needle in each individual stores. Of course, there's stores that are just like really great. And then there's some stores that are lagging. So we try to incorporate different strategies to see what can we do to maintain that placement. And it's really all about engagement. At the end of the day, it's if they see you in that store every week, and you're showing them that you're doing all you can to get to the consumers and show them that your product is really valuable, then you get that opportunity.
[00:13:03] Melissa Traverse: Well, the fact that you've been able to put yourself in 95, 91 places at once is totally amazing. So before I hand the conversation over to you so that you can ask Jamari all of the questions that you have at this point, Jamari, I just wanted to take a moment and find out, do you have any questions at all for Cecilia before I hand the mic over to her about the program or about what's taken place so far?
[00:13:29] Jamari Pinkard: I mean, the question I always like to ask is, how do you feel about it? Because a lot of what we go through in this journey is ups and downs, peaks and valleys. And we always know the thing is coming around the curve. We just don't know when or where. And so how do you feel about the journey so far?
[00:13:44] SPEAKER_01: I feel super happy. I think the whole team, we're all super excited. It's just been a chance to even as a team, you know, to come together and like, it's that initial excitement of like, okay, we got this opportunity. There's a little bit of that jitters of like, what if we suck, right? What if we just can't perform? And so I think there's definitely been valleys and peaks. That first month was just scrambling, like, oh my gosh, like trying to get everything together, a little bit stressful, I will say. But after we got kind of like over the promo hump, like and then understanding all the pieces that come together, even like working with the merchandising team, it's just been really rewarding. Like everyone just putting so much energy and excitement towards what we're doing. It's been a really great experience, and I'm super happy to be able to do this.
[00:14:38] Melissa Traverse: I'm going to hand the mic over to you. Really, this call is for you and to be able to pick Jamari's brain, and there's a lot in there, so please take it away. It's very small.
[00:14:50] SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Melissa. You know, like as we think about how we are growing eventually, you know, like we're actually working on getting ourselves onto the planogram. How would you look at this in terms of, you said you started out in New York in a couple stores, right? Like in that region. How did you think about when was that right moment to expand into other regions or even just globally? What were the deciding factors for you to say, okay, we're ready and let's go?
[00:15:23] Jamari Pinkard: Yeah, it's a good question. So we started in 2017 with our cocktail bidders. And I think along that journey, the thing we did while we did a ton of demos like you're doing right now and played the game, the regional game of trying to figure out what's working, what kind of amplification makes sense, what the right demo opportunities are, what the right consumer insight was, we realized something. Not only in Hoefus, but across the cabinet influenced our decision making circuit 2020 when we finally got global, which was. When we did a ton of demos, we were realizing what people were doing with our cocktail bitters. They were actually taking our bitters and putting them into soda water at home. Or in the demos, they'd work better when we put something else around them because they're very, very potent, which makes sense and we knew. And so we're always looking for different vessels to use the bitters to showcase the flavor. And so we realized that like, yes, it was a bartender's handshake, a bitters and a soda water. And when you had a tummy ache or a headache, we saw people doing it in demos by themselves. And then we saw the whole kind of, you know, nutrition, dietician world use bitters a lot and they power with soda water. And so we're like, wow, people are just really using a lot of our products in a non-alcoholic way to like have a carbonated water experience. And so between 2017 and 2020, we always had this thesis, like we're going to make a ready to drink version of it. And so as we thought through that, we tried to bring Whole Foods along on that journey a little bit here and there. Like, here's a mock-up of this thing we're working on, right? And we got no response, which was cool, but we figured it was in the air somewhere. And like, it would make a little bit of noise because we weren't, you know, we were on shelf somewhere. So someone would take a note to it, even though we didn't get, again, initial replies. And then around in 2019 at BevNET, shout out to BevNET though. Let's go.
[00:17:06] SPEAKER_01: Seriously, it's the place to be.
[00:17:08] Jamari Pinkard: I'm not even joking. I met our Whole Foods buyer who I'd been pinging, and I was like, oh, there he is. Deer in the headlights. Here we go. And I had a bittersweet soda, right? So we had product. And I think what struck a chord there was it was an innovation on an item that they had, right? And so the innovation while bitters is a very like you sit in your cabinet for a long time. Yes, bartenders usually go through it, but your home consumer may not go through it at the same speed. So our problem is going to be a velocity play, right? So we like solving velocity by having something that was in a different vessel, which was one, but then two, it was innovative. There was no non-ALCSET. We didn't fit anywhere on the shelf. And so they get to test us in this new space with no real fail. Whatever wasn't working, whatever was on the bottom 10% of their sales anyway, was going to get replaced. And so I think we found the right timing of innovation, of super curious, of all the things that are now here. We were at the very beginning of it. And so we had an innovative item that was already made. We weren't like, oh, we're going to deliver it by 2019. We had a product. And so we were able to, the curse was when we launched, it was in COVID, right? The gift was that it was global. And so they were taking a bet that this innovation could make some noise. And the other gift that we had was we had been in business for quite some time already. So we had a community that we had built very succinctly around the idea of what bidders are in different trades. And so I think the innovation piece was that the crack, right, was something that was new and different. But like, there was a tribe already established around the idea of it.
[00:18:43] SPEAKER_01: So you feel like you you were ready, especially since you already had built that audience, right? And you're like, okay, now it's not so much as a gamble, right? Where you're feeling ready.
[00:18:54] Jamari Pinkard: We had built the case study, right? In a lot of ways, you built the case study for like, you know, what you're working through is does a demo work? Does a TPR work? Does amplification somewhere else? Does social media work? By that time, we were like, in-home mailers, let's go, right? To drive the zip codes that we had from DTC directly to store. And we can talk about that, but that we were already working on like how we're going to execute at that level, which was very helpful because now we get to tell the retailer, like, here's our plan of attack beyond, you know, a coupon four times a year, which is, which is, which is effective.
[00:19:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I mean, tell, tell us a little bit about that. Like the, the TPRs, how do you think about like how much, how much you're putting into these promo months and, you know, like four times a year, is that, is that kind of like your standard or.
[00:19:39] Jamari Pinkard: For those out there listening, thinking about what tools you're using your arsenal for, either gaining trial, increasing sales, clearing inventory if you're doing some refreshes, launching new products, they're all different. Depending on what part of the design you're working on, the toolkit is different. You want to pulse different things. That's at a high level. I think that, secondly, it depends on the category. Right. So different categories, pulls at different moments for kind of like obvious reasons, like you're going to crush dry January and sober October that I could just be like, they'll be there because the occasion has a lot of amplification that beyond you, um, and other months is going to be a little harder. Right. And so like, you got to figure out what tools help you in those months versus what tools you need and others to drive whatever, you know, again, what your goal is in your KPI. And so they, I think at the high level, figure out what works for you. All things don't go all places at all times. And so like me saying the TPRs do this and the scan backs do that, like is a non-starter, right? Like that's bad advice. And so for us, we realized that like stacking something like a demo with a scan back was wonderful, right? Because we're giving you the education and then we're saying, no, try it. And so when you're launching a new product, great plan to have a few demo months with a scan back on shelf so that those things work hand in hand and you're not losing the sale because it was too expensive on trial. And so that's advice that I would give a new brand is get out there, do your top 20% of volume stores at Whole Foods, pair that with a scan back of some sort, and go to work because you have the best chance of the trial. Right. And there you can educate them, get their email list, put it into the machine, if you will. Now you can start communicating about the benefits, features, where to go, when to buy all those things. So hopefully like, again, we think about it at a high level of where the, where the, where the tools fit in the toolkit and not just a blanket approach.
[00:21:31] SPEAKER_01: definitely resonates with how we saw that kind of like that promo month and we were out there almost every like two or three stores a week we demoed and you could see that the difference between when we weren't in the promo month and we were still demoing, we were moving a lot more volume while the promo was going on.
[00:21:51] Jamari Pinkard: And the trick there is to understand like, I'm, I'm, I want the customer to be loyal. So this is my entryway to education. I don't want to anchor them in this price point because it's not the everyday price point. And you want, you don't want them to buy only on deal, but you do want to get them trial. So this is a trial moment where they understand why the value is there. Right. And so like, again, if you can give them that information upfront in person, but then drip it to them later on email or other ways, then it starts to be, it starts to resonate and stick. And now you can afford that price, you know, 12 months. 12 months a year, depending on when you want to oscillate for other reasons that may be not around trial.
[00:22:26] Melissa Traverse: I have a question for you, Jamari. When you think about doing demos in Whole Foods Market stores, are you choosing the stores where you have the highest opportunity, so stores where you want to increase velocity, or are you choosing the stores where you have really great traffic, where you know you're going to be able to increase velocity with the demos, or is it a mix of both? How do you figure that out?
[00:22:45] Jamari Pinkard: It's a good question. I think it's a mix of both. You definitely want to do the latter, right? Like, because the idea is in, you know, if we're talking about all the things in the ecosystem, more, you know, more traction at Whole Foods, introducing new SKUs at Whole Foods, they're gonna be looking at like, what's your average velocity is dollar per store, right? That's what they're gonna look at as a KPI. So of course, you want to do part two, which is like drive the case study in your best stores, because that's going to bring the average up. So you can't deny from a dollar perspective, you might not have done well in the bottom 30% of their story zone volume, but the 70% that you did is going to make up for it in numbers. So you want to make sure that you're driving the case study for how much can you saturate a door? That is the equation. when you have resources and when you're going to be acquired or whatever the thing is that you want to go in this, like, well, what's my max out, you know, velocity in a door? Like, what can I actually do if I put all my resources here and laser focus it? It's X, right? And so like, you want to know what that is at all times. So like any door that you're at, like, you know, the probability and you want to know what tier two and tier three doors are like in this kind of like, demographic household penetration, like it doesn't work there because maybe they don't have enough disposable income or the category doesn't really resonate in certain places, which is fine, right? When we think about alcohol and non-alcs in different towns and cities, like stores are closed on Sundays, right? So like, what does that mean for your store? It might mean a lot on a Sunday, right? And so you just want to know what those tiers look like and where the kind of max out potential is. And so you definitely will kind of load up on those places. But at the same time, you want to know, again, where those secondary placements are, if you will, in terms of cities or locations. And you want to make sure that, are you at one unit per door? Can you get it to two? Is it possible? What does it take to do that? You may spend a lot more time and resources figuring it out. But once you crack that case study, now you can copy and paste it along the same lines. And it might not be a scan back there, right? It might be something else that's working. It might not be a demo. It might be an event that takes place in the community that resonates that, like, that's the real unlock. And so you really want to understand what the right unlocks are, like inside a door and outside a door that are tangential to the locale.
[00:24:57] SPEAKER_01: That's something that we all also are kind of like figuring out, um, because we, we do have some stores that, you know, like the, the laggers, right. And, and our merchandising team goes in and, and the people at the store are like, well, you know, like if we get a, can we get a demo here? Right. Cause like, it's not moving really well. And so we always try to kind of like work with the buyers as well to support them before we say, okay, forget about the store. We're not going to invest here.
[00:25:25] Jamari Pinkard: And the thing about those stores is what's powerful about them is the insight. You want to know why, right? Like what's happening at a macro level. Like a lot of the things that we did when we first entered Whole Foods, we didn't just you know, merchandise and pay a broker or pay a merchandiser to go in there and do demos, we actually would train the staff in our set. Like, tell us about what's happening in this set from your POV. One, they become advocates and ambassadors for the brand because you're educating them one-to-one or two-to-one or whatever it is. But also, they're giving you insight on what's working, what's not working. Oh, it's not this set. It doesn't have X. It doesn't have non-alcohol beer. That's over there. And that's where people are driving for that set in this particular store for whatever reason, shelf space limitations around. So just understanding like where the placement might work or why something's not driving is just as insightful to go to those other stores that are maybe not your hero stores. So like get the insight from the customer and the team.
[00:26:21] SPEAKER_01: 100% agree. Yeah. I had one store in particular. And it was in a good area, it was in Newport Beach. And you would think, I'm like, no, that has to be, it's like Fashion Island, I think it's called. We hadn't sold one unit in the entire promo month. I was like, what is happening here? And so I had a chance to go recently to Orange County and I did a demo there myself. And I sold through the entire stock that they had, right, in like four hours that I was there. And I'm like, well, this isn't a bad store. Like it was just like the product was sitting in a, in a really like weird corner of the, of the cooler. And, and it just needed that awareness. And I think also the engagement of just with the staff themselves, you know, like now, after I did that demo, now I can see that there's, there's still sales going on there. But, but there was no reason for it not to be a good store. I couldn't understand it. Going back to, you know, like kind of like that expansion. When you were thinking about doing global what what kind of distribution factors like were you considering there. Did you already have that distribution in place or were you. Were you building that out?
[00:27:31] Jamari Pinkard: Yeah, we were still building out our distribution footprint. Whole Foods still uses UNFI, who was our original distributor with them, or was Haddon House before UNIFI bought them. I can't remember which one. It was a distributor called Haddon House, which I think focused on UNIFI as well. And so it was either Haddon House or UNFI that had them. In either case, what that relationship did with Whole Foods was expand our UNFI relationship across the country, which was helpful for us because now we got to plant anchor flags around the country with these SKUs as our heroes, which was kind of our end game for that product line. And that's when we definitely had to think through, you know, how the price point changes once you start adding, you know, freight logistics to it, or you're giving them 2% with the allowance, or you're not. And I think for years, we went back and forth to figure out which one was actually more economical. And I think it depending on the time of day, right? During COVID, it was terrible, because if you owned freight, it was because obviously, that's stuck in its tracks, right? So when we first launched with them, we said, here's the 2%, like, take care of it, because freight's out of this world. And I think years later, we took it back, right? And we went back and forth, depending, again, the state of the state. But it definitely helped us kind of enrich our footprint around the country with this line of business, for sure. I'm not sure if there's more to that question, but like, yes.
[00:28:53] SPEAKER_01: So you're still working with UNFI?
[00:28:56] Jamari Pinkard: We still work with UNFI through Whole Foods, correct. Okay, great.
[00:28:59] SPEAKER_01: And is that just for Whole Foods or like just do you do different distributors for other stores?
[00:29:04] Jamari Pinkard: We actually have two distribution arms. One services kind of our traditional broad liners, UNFI, Kehi, that really manages our grocery business. And then we have a kind of liquor arm or liquor distribution arm that services our kind of on-premise, think bar, restaurant, food service accounts around the country. And so we're bifurcated into two streams of business, if you will.
[00:29:28] SPEAKER_01: It's great insight to understand just like kind of like the complexities of distribution as a CVG brand, right? Like it's not just like one and let's go, like you have to kind of build out that network and manage that depending on like what your channels are. But that's great, no, great insight.
[00:29:46] Jamari Pinkard: folks out there listening and yourself when you get to the food service when you get to the bar restaurant side you know you got to think about pricing when that becomes the the real issue is that the prices need to be kind of in some level of transparency and in stacked order so they make sense and they actually make returns for you, that makes sense in each channel, right? They might vary just a little bit, but if they don't, you kind of get caught flat footed because you think, Oh, everything should go at the same price, but you have to think about what the price is to the end customer versus in between. And so just be mindful that those may change if you have different types of distributors.
[00:30:20] Melissa Traverse: I wanted to build on the distribution question that Cecilia had. So, Jamari, do you use any DSDs for any of your retailers or is it UNFI for retailers and then for the alcohol business, it's different?
[00:30:34] Jamari Pinkard: Good question. We actually have one DSD. We use rainforest for whole foods on the Northeast. And that's because when we first started, if I take you back to the bitters proposition, we were using a regional DSD there. And so we stayed DSD when we launched a bitters and soda in the Northeast. And so there is a carve out there for for rainforest and like the gift of that. And the reason that we we think about DSD, especially in pure play beverages, because once we get in the whole foods or someplace like that, That's an anchor account. We also want to go up and down the street. To your bodega and convenience stores and things like that, that UNFI does not service in the same way. And so DSDs actually work really well, depending on what your route to market is planned out to be. Sometimes you don't have the choice at the beginning, but it's something to think about when you think about having a UNFI or whomever when you want to start carving those things out. But again, sometimes you don't have the foresight and it becomes really difficult. But if you can, then you should.
[00:31:29] Melissa Traverse: And then for retailers outside of Whole Foods Market, do you have other DSDs to service the regions outside of the Northeast for other retailers? How does that work?
[00:31:39] Jamari Pinkard: Yeah, for the most part, we don't if if our DSD sometimes is our liquor distributor. So in certain states where they act as the same because they go up and down the street in a California, where a DSD and alcohol distributor are the almost one in the same sometimes because they touch every door because alcohol because can be sold in convenience stores or bodegas or grocery or deli groceries. So they become one-on-one wares in New York, they can't. And so you need a DSD to service up and down the street, and you need a unified to go into a grocery store. So depending on the marketplace, you have a different design. And so you kind of have to back into which one fits your end customer footprint. And so it looks different in different places. Sometimes they're one of the same, sometimes they're not. So yes, we probably have, big question, we probably have 30 different distributors around the country because of the fragmentation. That includes food service, where it's going to be your Ciscos and your PFGs. And what you have to really understand is that the client is responsible for how you want to come to market for the most place. And if you can adhere to that, it makes your opportunity at keeping the business a lot more sustainable than if you're asking them to take random distributors that they never use.
[00:32:49] SPEAKER_01: Well, that makes me. think about how do you manage all these relationships? How big is your team? Who's in charge of what? Just thinking about as a brand myself, that we're starting to scale, right? And I'm starting to think about key hires and who we're going to incorporate into the team. What are those positions that we should think about as we grow?
[00:33:10] Jamari Pinkard: And I will tell you that every brand is going to be different, but I can tell you the consistent answer is that every brand will oscillate in that experience of up and down that headcount spectrum and the ability for it to be 1099 fractional versus full-time changes. I believe in this idea that is probably common practice. And but I just use different terminology, which is I date before I marry. Right. So everyone's attending nine first, I can understand what you have and what the KPI looks like. And can you achieve it before you become a W nine. But I think at our height, I'd say 2019 2020, we had a team of around 15 people, mostly full-time. We had 19 fractional 1099s that were our demo specialists that we vertically integrated and turned the best of those into salespeople in different cities. So it oscillates depending on the time of year, what's going on, COVID versus economy, things like that. But I would say the first hire for us was the demo team. We built out a field marketing team first. which is counterintuitive to most, I think brands wouldn't do it that way. But for us, it was most important to have an experience true piece, because we're selling such an esoteric idea. Right? So the education was like the thing that was the most important to get people's understanding and buying of whether or not we even had a product market fit. And so we built a vertical demo sales team first, and our first hire was our field marketing manager, right? That was the first person because they had to build the rest of that system. The second, I think, influence you hire was probably an ops, right? Because now you're thinking through what we just talked about logistics, logistics, logistics. And so while we or the founders were hats of sales operations and kind of like biz dev, We found people that can be our wing person, that were dedicated to that. And I think the last folks that we hired as we built up the team were the sales infrastructure, right? Like head of sales, head of chain, head of food service. So those are the last, right? And it seems like, again, counterintuitive that you would hire your salespeople first. But if you have decent salespeople sitting in the founders or the founder plus seats, you build out what you don't have. And so for each brand, I think that journey is gonna be different depending on what your skillset is, what your team originally has that it can build and what it doesn't that you can't solve for because it's just not in your range.
[00:35:28] SPEAKER_01: I like that, the idea of kind of building that demo team first and because they're gonna be your frontline, right? Like that's who's gonna be telling your story and you've gotta make sure that they have it, right? Versus just hiring like a temp person to do a demo.
[00:35:44] Jamari Pinkard: That's also resource allocation. Do you have it? What do you have in your toolkit to be able to deliver it? So it becomes really about what can you optimize and less about sometimes what you want. What do I need and can I afford to have it, yes or no? And that kind of dictates was it full-time, part-time, seasonal? And I think a lot of food and beverage companies, we're playing on skinny margins with a little bit of capital. And so that's going to be usually the blueprint as you build to it. And I think that's par for the course.
[00:36:12] SPEAKER_01: Were you bootstrapping in the beginning or were you able to kind of like raise capital from the start?
[00:36:18] Jamari Pinkard: No, so when we started, it was a hobby. We weren't trying to have a KPI or build a mega machine. So everything was like, when it happens, it happens. I think for three years, we didn't pay ourselves because we had other jobs. And we would like do this in the margins. As we got more resources, we found more people. OK, plug that in. We got one. And so by the time we fundraised, I think we had a team of like, four or five people that were able to support, you know, vis-a-vis cash flow. And then the fundraise in 2019, allowed us to like do R&D on the bitters and soda, start building up a field marketing team, things like that. And
[00:36:56] SPEAKER_01: Was your kind of like your global launch with Whole Foods, was that something that investors were like, oh, this is great or was that afterward?
[00:37:04] Jamari Pinkard: That was nice to have. We had launched a mixer line in between that has like our Moscow Mule and our Margaritas and our Bloody Marys in between that time. So we really had initial traction in retail and things like that. We were doing a decent amount of business that like made it make sense. And that was about accelerating the case study versus needing money to build out the idea, right? So again, we weren't, We didn't have a timeline to build a company that we were adhering to. We weren't there at that moment trying to figure out how we're going to pay investors back. It was just like whether or not it was sustainable and whether or not we enjoyed the journey was more of like what we were about. And then we started fundraising. It was like, oh, we're putting, you know, gas on the fire instead of like trying to find sticks.
[00:37:45] Melissa Traverse: Well, Jamari, I have one last question for you, and I think it's one that probably every founder and every brand can empathize with, no matter what the retailer is. With Whole Foods Market, and certainly with any other retailer, how do you deal with buyer turnover? And I think this is something that I've been noticing more and more with Whole Foods as their business model evolves a little bit. Is there anything that you can do so that you don't have to completely start over, especially when you're in a position like Cecilia's where she's in these 95 stores, she's looking to expand, so it's crucial that she be able to build a rapport with a buyer if she wants to continue her expansion and stay in the stores that she's already in?
[00:38:31] Jamari Pinkard: Yes, it's very difficult, which is clear. But I think there are a few techniques that can work. They're not a guarantee, but they work. One is that you're already in the doors, right? You're doing the work in demos and building relationships with the internal buying team or the staff at each store. And I think what you're doing there is building champions, right? So Regardless of where there's turnover, hopefully there's enough champions that you've built that continue to buy and advocate for you as a brand and say, you know what? And you take those testimonials if you want to and say, can you record that for me? Can you record this for me? Can you record this line? That's how great we are. And you package those up at some point and say, here's part of your review is like, look what I have. I have testimonials from our partners, right, that we're doing amazing work. And we're here, we're physically here, we're mentally here. And so I think there's one thing you can just have in your pocket. But I think at a higher level to realize that the buyers are people that have jobs, and they're going to rotate, and they're going to do those things, and to have that decor with them and those conversations about their plans and what makes them win at their job, to know that in advance so you can actually help them get there. If it's a KPI, if it's a contact, whatever the thing is, you may actually be helpful to them if you look at them as a person at work. That frame, I think, helps a lot. right? Um, where by the time they get to whatever that next part of the journey is, they're referring you back to the new buyer, like, because they're not gonna do it for everyone, but they can do it for the people that know them as humans and know that where they've been and where they're going and like, have been supportive on their journey, the same way they've probably been supportive of your journey is like, just a real unlock. That's true. It's not fake, right? And you don't have to turn anything on or off to do it is something that I'd say is there. But I'd also save every email, right that you have with them and put them in like a like some kind of repository, all their quotes, all the things they said about you during your meetings, when you were humming and you were doing well, like, put it together for the next buyer to introduce you. Here's our pack. Like, I just want you to know where we're coming from. We're coming from with our amazing other buyer, your friend, so and so this is where we were. And so we want to stay in good standing, like, who are you? What do you need? And what's your KPI? What? What are you trying to get to? Here's right with how we support that journey. And like, We're here to be a human partner, a brand partner, not just a transaction. So I think those things have been super helpful. In my case, all of my Whole Foods buyers are my friends today, right, for that reason. They're not a Whole Foods buyer anymore, but we still conversate, still grab lunch or dinner when I'm in town. And so you never know where you're going to meet your buyer on the rest of the journey and vice versa.
[00:41:06] Melissa Traverse: Well, Jamari, co-founder of Hella Cocktail, it's not hard for us to see why you guys have been so successful, why you've been at it so long and why you really are one of the originals in the beverage space. So thank you so much for joining us today and giving out such great advice and being so generous with sharing everything that you've learned so far. And Cecilia, thank you so much for, you know, having this idea in the first place and asking all of these fantastic questions. And we're just so thrilled for you and for this amazing opportunity with Whole Foods Market. And, you know, I know that this is just going to bring you so much more. opportunity, and we just can't wait to see you and Jazz everywhere. So thank you so much, Cecilia and Jamari, for joining the Non-Based Podcast. It was great to have you here. For everybody else, thank you for listening to the Non-Based Podcast, and we'll see you next time. That concludes another episode of the Nambase podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review and follow us on your listening platform of choice. You can also watch and listen to past episodes on nambase.com. And don't forget to join our Nambase Slack at slack.BevNET.com for company updates, industry networking, and community discussions. See you next time.
