How To Turn Your Idea Into a Ready To Drink (RTD) Beverage Product: Case Study - Jocko White Tea

all right you're you're watching start to sold and today we're going to interview Pete Grega from NorCal beverage and we're going to talk about how to take your idea and turn it into a liquid refreshment beverage if you ever wondered oh my gosh how would I take my idea for a drink and turn it into something that you can be sold in a store Pete is the guy you want to talk to he is the VP of Sales for a co-packer who runs all kinds of international brands people brands that you know all about and so if you have ever bought a canned beverage or a beverage in a jar last jar or a plastic plastic bottle he's probably seen it and worked at that company so we want to ask him some cool questions to figure out how do you take your idea and get it selling on the shelf so Keith thanks so much for being here today I appreciate it to develop and market beverage so what's exciting about Pete is that actually we have launched a product very recently we thought the best way to illustrate and explain how to launch an idea into a physical product that you can sell is to explain our story one of the companies that I've worked with is Jaco white tee and a friend of mine and also a podcaster and York Times bestselling author is jakka willing from java podcasts and he drinks this tea before he rolls jiu-jitsu every day and so we decided to turn it into a dry shelf-stable tea that it sold really well and what we heard a lot of people say oh my gosh I wish I could drink that tea on a real regular basis just reach in the fridge and grab it and go so we wanted to do that and we came up with we had a recipe of what the tea should taste like and we want to know how to get it into something like this I can I'm actually going to drink some of it right now we made this with NorCal beverage and thanks to their help we were able to get this done really quickly so Pete we go through this normal process at the company that I own where we take an idea and we get it from start to finish and the first phase of developing a product is ideation where you come up with your idea you figure out like what do you want the recipes to be what do you want to taste like and so when it comes to someone who wants to work with a huge company like you what is the best first step for someone who wants to like start formulating an idea for a recipe well we have quite various types of products that come to us for development and we have a process to be sure but minimize any disruptions during the process we're a potential brand owner client guiding them through a process that allows them you know what we need to be taking the product into mercial ization and some of those steps in food about making sure that you have the formulation allocated as being able to be ran in a commercial environment large quantity for production in xpeke environment and we do that by assuring that he ran over has aligned with a batch instruction sheet test on how they want the product back and then also making sure that the Green moment has reliable sources or ingredients that is really key making sure that the supply chains are sound and meet the highest quality good those are all really pillars of making a difference at that point once we know that that's been secured we move towards evaluation and align our escape abilities with better and at that point then we will start to a mind about packaging in this case your product that cans and that's something you do want to make sure that you've got all of the right labeling and decorating of the hand done and an artwork was submitted to the cam manufacturer as well as your secondary packaging was in a fully wrapped fiber box and we want to make sure that those containers were aligned with our equipment and also met your standards for color and finish once we had all that we went to a process to make sure that it meet the product made in this file for all state and regulatory compliance because we make it a team and it's an acidified food the state of California in this case will we operate has a pH control program that they oversee and so all products that have a tea base or have any type of an acidified nature to it requires submission and we do that in conjunction with the brand over and at that point that there your product is fault before below a 4.3 ph level then you are able to produce without being a regulatory control if the pH level is higher then you could be subject you know regulatory control and these tray so one of the things I wanted to come back to was packaging you just talked about how important that is when you're going through the ideation process sense what's so weird about packaging is that it kind of defines the brand there's two pieces to a product that's what it tastes like and what it looks like so we in this case had a dried tea that when we brewed it and put it on ice we knew what it tasted like we had a formulator help us make a really delicious recipe so we knew what it would look like and if we had a difference if we had all these different products how do you decide hey this should go in a plastic bottle hey this should go into a glass a glass bottle that would be the best way to sell it or how do you decide if it should be you can't like what are the pros and the cons of these different packaging mediums and why why was a a can the best option for this well can for this type of product I think there's a few customer got to be adopted you're developing a brand you have to look at what you were putting in the product what is the base of the product and then what is your marking then what are you worried your target I so in the case of Jocko you know there's a a big perception about what you are doing with the brand you are obviously Jocko is a you know my friend is being built for people to have an allegiance to a following of a motivator that can have strengthened and precedes spring so being in a can with a black decoration and a bold message is the right container it's going to be consumed most likely in one serving so their receive ability is not as much business right average for example of it as a meat they're not be consumed in one sitting that's where every scalability comes in and that's where having each skill is very important labeling bothers now also becomes another opportunity because now we have various different types of choices with definitely the bottom hand you have one you know decoration so this is where certain ingredients for products that you may not think about as being it would be drink in one setting or occasion about it was much more and then finally glass blasting out some weird properties if you have anything [Music] that's like there's a reason for that because there's a sense in my book so blast preserves those beds it's so interesting and what you mentioned also about labeling I think it's so interesting because when you're an emerging brand you have to worry about how much money you've got to spend to buy certain packaging and a lot of people don't realize that when you main you facts your cans for example on one production run you know you make enough to fill an entire truck of this particular you know print so it's a huge commitment you have to be ready to run a huge amount of products with a bottle you with a thermoform bottle that exists especially ones that having to be custom imprinting on the sides there's also huge mold you've gotta buy or you need to buy something that's already existing an existing mold so there's still huge minimums and glass probably has the least amount of items in the sense that usually buy stock bottle and they usually keep it keep it in stock so if you were an emerging brand who say that packaging probably affects a lot of your costs and you have to think about the minimum runs so in terms of ideation that kind of brings me to the next question because I think a lot of people when they're beginning to do or freshen beverage they have no idea how much it will take and and what kind of minimums that they need to expect to run and why why are there minimums because when you're making something like cheese or some of its handmade you usually have small small runs like a thousand units three thousand units I think we did four truckloads worth of product with you guys because that was what we need to do with our minimum so talk to us what what should someone who's launching a brand or a freshman what if what kind of minimums should a person be prepared for when they were about to launch a beverage out into the market yeah so that's a great question Emily and one of the things that we always look at is you know obviously you're starting out that's the best fully understood however you have to realize that if you go from being in a pinch top environment so to speak of yourself and now you want to give in the commercial retail environment you're going to be scaling the product in size naturally because in order to run in a commercial environment you know what a certain infrastructure of the tanks and process equipment that means a certain amount of flow and in order to sustain that we have in our case a minimum number of gallons that we make of a batch of any product as a minimum and in this case we we benchmark of thousands of finish now that being said that sounds like a tremendous amount but you have used you know depending upon what compare site they'll produce it and how many compares per finish engage before that if you carry but we we also include them that analogies you were based or what they call to return and wash out because when you're done processing and feeling you have a charge for pipe to your fourth from the batch bank and that is basically what's left in the process they asked flushed and sanitized much like you would if you made a cake at home you gave it in a bowl and put stuff to the ball is waste though there's we also like doing that research all those reasons right and so I've got a lot we have so much experience manufacturing products and developing products that the company that I own but I'll say that this this type of process requires so much more than a lot of other types of manufacturing because when you flip the switch you are doing can after can after can and it's a fast process so that there's efficiencies so that those cans can be affordable for the customer so it made so much sense why you would have such huge minimums and I just think if a person is considering launching an emerging brand a refreshment beverage they need to realize that it's gonna take some serious capital upfront and a real commitment to the product that you're going to be making so just something to I think that a person should think through I think this is a very important point a lot of people we understand desired you can do that how successors watching this into retail you'll never be able to product need like more small boutique your cost will or eventually eat you up you have to get into a higher scale facility that can deliver you as you mentioned even though they're of value right so in turn we just talked about packaging which has a lot to do the design elements of launching a brand and right now we're talking about a lot of manufacturing elements one of my favorite photos that I have from when you're on site is what I was wearing some hairnet you know you had your hair back and a hairnet and I think you had to wear a beard mustache met and it was a lot of people are not aware at what great links you guys go to to keep food state because you can imagine if someone was careless and manufacturer was careless and you're manufacturing for truckloads worth of product and something was wrong it would hurt so many people and so you guys were uptight you were super super uptight but I was really grateful that you were so by-the-book following all the different rules and so speak a little bit about QA and how important that is and and what kind of processes an emerging brand needs to be prepared for so they could be have a cheese cross and her eyes dotted quality is everything we we have to sustain the highest level of quality all time that's done by having the very strong commitment from leadership all the way down and people on the floor and I think you saw that demonstrated very facility everybody cares about quality absolutely we've come out before we do anything we take follow me into everything we do and those standards are standards that we are audited against why also that is we hire a third party company to come in and out in our own internal quality system so you know we feel very strongly that in order to make a good beverage product standards got the VFL and every day I know you guys are incredible at it because you could you could tell that every person that you spoke to on your team just felt a moral obligation it wasn't just their job it felt a moral obligation of commitments to quality so I thought it was a lot of fun to wear a hairnet and I was glad you guys were so serious about it because it keeps me safe and it keeps my clients safe oh you know we give you an example of we are so good that even on our employee badges we have the quality statement attached with all of our principles of our quality systems that's how committed we are that's awesome you could feel it I could feel it you're walking down the hallways so another thing I wanted to talk to you about was the Oh another thing I want to talk to you about was the delivery because that's the next step in the process once you've gone through manufactured all of that product you guys have a really efficient way of palletizing everything and getting it together and in our case we decided to sell things as it's pack of ten so we have our cans that are in a temper so this is the pack of ten I had to open it to be able to get some of these cans but so this is the method that we chose to sell our product in and then we had to pack it in a tray and so there's two of these in a tray and then a big pallet so and then I know that you can also have the option of buying just straight pallets having no outer box just putting units in a tray talked to me about the packaging and when you should decide method to pack it in depending upon the delivery method or the retail chain you're going to be selling to yes so um this is generally decided when the grant is developed based on how the product has been it going to the marketplace so one of the things you know right now products starting out a lot of times the products being sold in a single serve environment so a lot of the folks we make initially will be tapped loose in a tray like you demonstrate it and at that point they'll be able to see you may be either quickly fill over the top of the face or in some cases if the brand feels that the the image of the case is an important rule you would see a debt-free tray or we can do a registered fill over the case to add graphic visibility so as far as the multi pack that you just demonstrated that's usually comes when a customer has penetrated the market and believes that there's any multiple purchase at one consumer and um in this case it lends itself well for that also in the e-commerce space this is a great opportunity for having a multi carton of Amazon or Walmart or any other words we go right and we that's why we chose the ten pack because we knew that we'd be shipping things through amazon.com and that we would eventually be selling at retail and we figured the fastest way to market for all these things was to put it in a outer exterior box because Amazon would be scanning barcode and that's the way that you got to keep everything tight and so a larger case pack would not be the right fit for so that's really it's important and after you know you've figured out how to deliver your products again so after you've figured out how to deliver your product and how you're going to pack everything up there's the most important piece just sales if you develop a great product and you don't sell it you just out money and that's actually what I usually tell clients they need to think of first hey how are you going to sell this product what's the distribution channel that you're going to use what's the pricing that you're going to use how are you gonna mark things so we happen to have people who had already tried the team have a podcast and so that helps us to get a hold of people but other emerging brands don't have that network yet so what's what have you seen really really works for a new startup brand when it comes to sales what needs to be a good strategy for success that you've seen the beverage industry well you know one thing that's always been important in selling beverages in the marketplace is you really have to have a story that kinds to your brand then obviously this is about building a message that you're going to be very clear and located to the end-user and that is really a pinnacle of sales so for example if you have a brand where identity with spokesperson or in this case Jaakko really has a message and a story to tell that that's already built in but some ways may do it with your dietary lydian that they have an impassioned story or sustainability message some brands do it maybe cause marketing right so they may give perceived back certain things you know certain whether the surgery our foundations and you need a story to tell so that you have a message people market that's a real critical piece obviously the most obvious is giving it demo spoons to the potential end-users and then creating availability with this position opportunity absolutely yeah and in terms of in terms of sales how much do you think branding like what is what do you think is the most important thing for a product to really sell is it the exterior packaging appearance do you think it's the flavor profile do you think it's your sales team that hustle well the general answer to my perspective is all of that one thing that you have to have is longer than that is is you have to be able to have package that different inches so and isn't perceived as a wheaty product and we do that is by every distinction in your packaging so in the case of Giacobbe you've chosen black as the base so you've already created a distinction out there because not a lot of other products black beans so those are the kind of things that you need to think about when you're developing even spread and the other thing is you know looking at what your brand is in what space are you going to throw in terms of the character so if you're selling an energy drink you know you're going to have a targeted audience in certain markets but if you're selling something like a tea it has a broader you know it has a opportunity we can see by more than then you know you obviously doubt now the bigger window of opportunity to a bigger population so those are all things evaluations yeah I love it I appreciate all this input because you have so much so many years of experience and launching Brandon you daily watch new products the line as well as oversee existing brands in making sure that they are successfully being repeated you know the flavor tastes the same every single time someone opens that can of that beverage and so I really really appreciate your time is there anything else that you would share with an emerging brands that they would be here to know where to think about before launching something like this yeah make sure that making sure that you follow the process to be able to things do change changes that's good yeah being adaptable is I think it's thankfully a skill set that emerging brands or entrepreneurs usually have is that they are usually pretty flexible and good at growing compared to maybe a really established company um but there are a lot of companies that are out there that want to add private label lines or different flavor profiles into their existing internal brand and so I think that that's good advice it be flexible and also to realize what kind of a commitment you've got to make if you're gonna go into the beverage industry you really have to be ready for the minimums be ready for the hustles appeal to get to those larger grocery stores making sure that you're on those shelves and that you really have a presence because it takes a lot to get this very very big animal moving in the right directions that is actually profitable and that people can actually have to taste and enjoy what you've just made but all that love and labour into to create something really delicious so well we've loved working with you and I just appreciate so much your help as a co-packer and partner with us and launching this brand and thank you for sharing some advice for emerging brands so they can kick off their their beverage and get it into stores I really appreciate your time Pete thank you so much for joining us today if you have any questions that need to get ahold of NorCal beverage or pro resourcing which is my company about how to take care of dia and get it launched the information to contact us will be in the show notes if you enjoyed this please like and subscribe to the channel and share with anyone else you know in the industry who once said launch a new product you know private label for existing company or wants to be an emerging brand entrepreneur and start something fresh we hope we helped you [Music]

Channel: Emily Anne Page from START to SOLD

Views: 67,356

Keywords: Emily page, product launch, how to launch physical products, how to get into retail, packaging how to, physical product ideas, RTD BEVERAGE, JOCKO WHITE TEA, ready to drink beverage, how to make a beverage, beverage entrepreneur, how to make a soda, how to can your drink, packaging for beverages, how to retail beverages, Jocko Podcast, nor cal beverage, how to create a beverage, how to create a drink, yt:cc=on, Jocko Willink, Jocko Go, Vitamin Shoppe, BJJ, Consulting

Id: V2ZngqZ0zyE

Length: 29min 46sec (1786 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018