Special Edition: Quarter 1 Beverage Industry Review

📢I talk🎙️with Julie Milroy, Erica Duecy, Caitlyn LuBell and Katharine Jerkens about the Beverage Industry Recap of Q1! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁

📽️ Watch on YouTube! 🎞️ https://youtu.be/TL7uKLkEb8s

🚀 Dive into the latest beverage industry trends from Q1 2025! Discover insights on non-alcoholic drinks, functional beverages, and market shifts. Stay ahead in the F&B world! 🍹📈 #BeverageTrends #ThirstyThursdays #FNBInnovation  @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST  

🌟 In this episode of Thirsty Thursdays Podcast, we explore the pivotal developments in the beverage industry during Q1 2025. Key highlights include:​

📊 The rise of non-alcoholic beverages and the 'sober curious' movement​
🥤 Innovations in functional and health-focused drinks​
🌍 Impact of recent tariffs on imported beverages​
📈 Emerging consumer preferences shaping the market​
🍹 Nostalgic flavors making a comeback​

Gain valuable insights to navigate the evolving beverage landscape.​

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 3:00 Innovative Approaches in the Beverage Industry
• 3:45 Introduction to Q1 Review Team
• 5:48 Quarterly Review and Economic Insights
• 8:41 Consumer Spending and Economic Indicators
• 11:17 Category Trends and Market Predictions
• 14:15 Emerging Brands and Market Strategies
• 17:05 Nostalgia and New Product Launches
• 24:42 Crossover in Beverage Distribution
• 25:42 Concerns Over Alcohol-Infused Products
• 29:25 Corporate Interest in Alcohol Market
• 30:54 The Impact of Alcohol on Health
• 32:25 Distribution Challenges in the Alcohol Industry
• 36:52 Learning from Beer Distribution Models
• 41:08 Opportunities in Non-Alcoholic and Functional Beverages
• 43:23 Market Trends and Brand Strategies
• 51:26 The Rise of Regional Brands in the Beverage Industry
• 53:54 Strategic Market Expansion: Lessons from Successful Brands
• 55:45 Navigating the Challenges of Major Markets
• 59:02 Impact of Tariffs on the Alcohol Industry
• 1:01:49 Consumer Behavior and the Shift in Wine Preferences
• 1:05:10 Innovations in Wine: Adapting to Market Demands
• 1:18:01 The Journey of Wine Discovery
• 1:20:32 Innovations in Wine Packaging and Marketing
• 1:24:14 The Impact of Tariffs on the Beverage Industry
• 1:27:10 Navigating Economic Challenges in the Alcohol Market
• 1:30:51 The Future of Alcohol Sales and Innovation
• 1:33:47 Produced by Fedora J Productions

Transcript

Caitlyn LuBell (00:00.227)
your projects.

Kate Jerkens (00:00.493)
Thanks.

Julie Milroy (00:02.158)
I I keep myself busy all the time. No, I was so excited because my dog joined me and she used to always sit with me and now like I like bribe her like with something and he was just sitting here she just ran off. So it was like, I know. I know I was so excited. I'm like, she's gonna, you know, say hello, but she ran off.

Caitlyn LuBell (00:09.935)
out.

Kate Jerkens (00:11.502)
Caitlyn LuBell (00:14.801)
Aww.

Kate Jerkens (00:17.511)
Aww. We're gonna get a special guest today, huh?

Erica Duecy (00:17.745)
Aww.

Julie Milroy (00:27.086)
No, I feel like there's a lot going on. I think I'm super excited, you know, with just the energy. I mean, despite obviously everything else with the 200 % tariffs and all that good stuff. But I just feel like with like innovation and just people like the industry being open to being like, yeah, we really need to like do something. And so many...

Caitlyn LuBell (00:37.358)
Right.

Julie Milroy (00:53.292)
different people like you guys, Caitlyn and what you're doing and Erika and then just like this.

Caitlyn LuBell (00:57.317)
We are, I can't, I can't breathe. We are like the brand cultivator program is slammed. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:03.458)
That's amazing. We have to talk that. We have to talk. I'm like, that is so brilliant. know, especially with just like how salespeople, it's like such a thankless job when you're working for a distributor and then they keep cutting back and cutting back your pay. I'm like, why not just pick your best brands and you know, like.

Kate Jerkens (01:04.042)
I want to hear about it.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:18.203)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:22.801)
And now we're getting so many brands that we get a new brand cultivator and we have like four or five brands just to hand them. And it's like amazing. Cause you know, in the beginning it was like one here, one there. And now all of a sudden we're just slammed and it's like, yeah, we can give them a whole book. Like, it's so good. But I'm, my head is spinning to be honest. But in a good way, obviously, right?

Julie Milroy (01:35.32)
They get like, they can get a portfolio. That's awesome.

Kate Jerkens (01:39.047)
That's cool.

Jessie Ott (01:47.413)
That's great. There's room for everybody.

Julie Milroy (01:47.586)
Yeah, for sure.

Kate Jerkens (01:48.987)
That's awesome.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:52.561)
Yeah, maybe we can sneak it in, Jessie, if there's if there ends up being I'm not going to be obtrusive about it. But if there ends up being room to sneak it in, I'd love to.

Julie Milroy (02:01.489)
yeah, definitely.

Jessie Ott (02:02.037)
think it's important because it's a trend. It's what's happening. mean, GreenGlass Global, we used to have a new brand every week. It was really overwhelming that first year. I mean, what people don't understand is they leave before 45 days expecting us to be able to manage a buyer in a year cycle in 45 days. It's like, these people don't understand the business. So I hope...

Kate Jerkens (02:04.432)
Agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (02:04.677)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (02:10.695)
Caitlyn LuBell (02:24.113)
Right, yeah. No, they don't. But the way that we're doing it, it's working. It's almost like the salespeople are teaching them. Like, no, this is how it goes. And this is what we're doing. No, it's a month to month. There's no long-term commitment. And people are just, every month, they're like, oh yeah. Oh, I need another state. Oh, do you have anybody here? Oh, okay. It's like.

Julie Milroy (02:27.011)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (02:36.071)
Okay. I hope they sign for like a year because you can't

Julie Milroy (02:38.146)
Thank

Jessie Ott (02:44.296)
Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (02:53.623)
So I think the whole non-committal thing is great for the brands. They love it. They're just like, they're like.

Jessie Ott (03:01.607)
and people are having a ball working for themselves, making money using their relationships and yeah.

Kate Jerkens (03:05.378)
Stir.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:05.617)
Both sides are just super stoked about it and it's just going so well. But sign of the times, Like surely it's an innovative approach to sales.

Julie Milroy (03:17.056)
It's new opportunities. And there's just more, I feel like, you know, there's more people getting pieces of the pie, right? And the pie is huge, right? Despite the declines and whatever, like nobody still talks about the actual earnings, you know, year after year. And it's like,

Caitlyn LuBell (03:26.384)
Yep.

Yep.

Kate Jerkens (03:29.767)
Mm.

Julie Milroy (03:40.65)
No, we're, you know, beverage alcohol is not dying. You know, it's just, it's getting smarter, I think.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:46.737)
We're just doing it different.

Jessie Ott (03:48.985)
Alright, you guys ready? I'm gonna intro you. Oh, we already started recording by the way. Hello everybody and welcome to Thursday Thursdays. We have our Q1 round table review with my crew here. We did a year in review for 2024 and expectations for 2025. We had so much fun. We decided to do this quarterly, which is really, really fun. We are kind of early.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:54.499)
Kate Jerkens (04:13.767)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (04:15.957)
In our analysis here, we only have two months of data, but a lot has happened and we have a lot to talk about So I will Erica starting with you. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Erica Duecy (04:27.057)
Sure. Erica Ducey, founder of Business of Drinks, we are both a podcast and a drinks business consultancy. We help brands and government associations and anyone who's looking find insights to better market their products across wine, beer, spirits, THC drinks, and RTDs.

Kate Jerkens (04:36.647)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (04:51.389)
One thing I wanted to say, Erica, I just saw Sid Patel. He's been posting something about you've been awarded as a journalist in line with Madeline Puckette and did you not?

Erica Duecy (05:04.069)
Have I? This is a new award that I'm not aware of.

Kate Jerkens (05:06.14)
Surprise!

Jessie Ott (05:10.855)
Yeah, I was, I saw it today because I was looking for, he posted something about THC. yeah, right here. Raising a Glass to Wine, media critics, writers, and voices of influence. You're right here. I'll show you.

Kate Jerkens (05:23.655)
Okay.

Julie Milroy (05:27.372)
Yay! news!

Erica Duecy (05:27.407)
Wonderful. Well, thank you. I'm happy to hear that.

Caitlyn LuBell (05:28.113)
Congrats!

Kate Jerkens (05:29.455)
That's awesome!

Seriously.

Jessie Ott (05:34.663)
Yeah, there you are. The same picture I have.

Erica Duecy (05:38.769)
Oh, nice. Yes, I know. think, I I thought that was like a, you know, a woman, a international women's day recognition.

Kate Jerkens (05:41.189)
Caitlyn LuBell (05:41.742)
Nice.

Julie Milroy (05:45.709)
Natalie McLean. and Erica. they're so pretty.

Kate Jerkens (05:48.635)
That's awesome.

Caitlyn LuBell (05:48.965)
That's nice.

Jessie Ott (05:48.989)
Yeah, and you're you're right here.

Erica Duecy (05:49.654)
Aww.

Erica Duecy (05:53.021)
well, yay. Woohoo. Happy to hear it.

Julie Milroy (05:53.792)
Thank

Jessie Ott (05:54.677)
Woo hoo hoo! Congratulations, seriously, that's really cool.

Caitlyn LuBell (05:54.821)
Yeah!

Caitlyn LuBell (06:00.827)
Jessie, where is that? Can you share it with us after so I can share it with my team too?

Erica Duecy (06:00.836)
Thank you.

Jessie Ott (06:04.265)
Yeah, it's the Somalier's Choice Awards. It's through Beverage Trade Network. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. Next, Kate.

Caitlyn LuBell (06:08.323)
Okay, okay, awesome.

Julie Milroy (06:10.795)
of your trade now.

Kate Jerkens (06:11.323)
That's great.

Caitlyn LuBell (06:15.685)
No, that's great.

Jessie Ott (06:19.797)
Okay.

Kate Jerkens (06:21.683)
Morning, my name is Kate Jerkins. I am Chief Business Officer for Uncle Nearest Inc and Yeah, ready to get after it

Jessie Ott (06:30.485)
Let's do this! Julie?

Julie Milroy (06:34.902)
Hi everyone, I'm Julie Milroy, founder of JM Advisory. I'm also a certified sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers. I have 20 years in wine and spirits industry, specialized in helping brands grow through smart distribution strategies. Recently, I've been diving into the AI and digital transformation front. I believe there's a lot.

of low-hanging fruit in the wine industry that we're just starting to tap into. And I'm excited to share insights on how wine can evolve and learn from other categories like beer. And I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Kate Jerkens (07:16.642)
Jessie Ott (07:19.591)
Yes, Caitlyn?

Caitlyn LuBell (07:21.733)
Yes, Caitlyn LuBell, Founder and Chief Connection Officer, made that one up myself. Booze Biz, so yeah, so Booze Biz, my partner Jennifer Meacham and I launched a recruiting agency strictly focused on beverage. So obviously wine, spirits, beer, but then we do...

Kate Jerkens (07:28.52)
I get it.

Jessie Ott (07:29.013)
Own it girl, own it!

Caitlyn LuBell (07:47.205)
Booze, booze free and booze adjacent. So we work with clients that are PR agencies that focus in beverage or non-ALC, functional beverages, THC, all the fun. We cover the US, any roles anyone needs to hire, whether it's fractional or full-time, we can assist from sales, from C-suite to feet on the street sales to admins and HRs.

Kate Jerkens (07:55.463)
.

Caitlyn LuBell (08:17.489)
We do everything and we're a small team, but we're all from the industry, which is what really sets us apart. We work the three tier system, we know the language, and yeah, we've been extremely busy lately, as you can all imagine.

Jessie Ott (08:33.941)
That's That's awesome. And you started a couple years ago, right?

Caitlyn LuBell (08:38.128)
Yeah.

Yeah, we did the noisy launch July 2023. So we've been noisy for a year, about a year and a half now. thankfully, because we all come from the industry, so we came in with a lot of first and second degree connections. It's very fortunate and thankful that business has been amazing. We've had to pivot listening to the industry and listening to clients into a lot of fractional roles, but

Kate Jerkens (08:42.586)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (08:45.299)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (09:10.673)
But we're still doing direct hire as well. And yeah, it's been amazing.

Kate Jerkens (09:16.265)
That's great.

Jessie Ott (09:17.127)
All right. All right. So I have prepared about seven slides or so, and we're going to review it. And for those that aren't on YouTube, for the audio piece, I will try to talk through it as best I can so you can visualize what we're talking about, starting with the economy and kind of talking down to the brand levels, what's working, what's not. So I'm going to share my screen again.

Kate Jerkens (09:39.002)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (09:48.117)
There we go. All right. So that looming question, right? Are we in a recession? We've been talking about it for a couple of years. So I did some research, oops, I did some research and the biggest economic indicators are GDP, unemployment rate, industrial production, consumer spending, leading economic index, yield curve.

inversion in stock market performance. And so far, what I can gather is that the biggest one is consumer spending and it's a sustained decrease that can indicate a recession. And there is a decline in spending and foot traffic dropping 4.3 % year on year in early March. So we kind of already know that, right? Dollar General is...

Kate Jerkens (10:18.731)
Mm.

Jessie Ott (10:35.797)
Closing some stores. know McDonald's is creating some more value meals. So we know that consumer meals are consumer spending is down when your eggs are $8 for 12 pack. They I mean, we're we're not a lug. We're kind of a luxury item, right? We're a luxury industry. It's you don't need it to live. You do it because it's fun or you enjoy it. So these are things that we need to watch and be aware of. But I don't think they're there. I'm not an economist. I'm sure economists use like

Kate Jerkens (10:41.959)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (11:03.509)
30 points that can point to something different. But as of this podcast, I feel pretty strongly because, because the economy is strong and that's an unemployment is low and that's really good. What I talked about last time is consumer debt. This is not good. So as of the fourth quarter in 2024, household debt reached 18 trillion. That's a 93 billion increase from Q3, which is only 0.5%. But half of that

is in credit card debt. And that is not good. Average household credit card debt exceeded 10,000 adjusted for inflation, a level that hasn't been seen since 2009, which is not good. There's more home equity loans being taken out, which there was a 17 year decline. But the balance of that piece, right, is the stock market. We're increasing our wealth if you have invested into the stock market, which

Kate Jerkens (11:37.159)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (12:00.903)
Maybe it's auto correcting. Maybe it's just uneasy. You know, probably wants to throw up like we do every other day because we don't really know what's going to happen. Right? Like, you know, it's just like make a decision already and just move on with it. But hopefully it's it's a negotiation tactic that he's using that will it results in something good down the line. That's that's the hope. You know, when you look at mortgage debt increases, auto loans and student loans, I find that debt to be

Kate Jerkens (12:01.639)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (12:29.631)
to be positive, people are buying homes, autos and going to school. So, I mean, for me, it's that credit card debt that that's concerning. And I know that we had talked about that last time because the more debt you get into, the less you can afford to do anything when you have all those big credit card payments and the interest rates are not low. shifting over to our category, which, you know, I know, Erica, you're in the wine piece of it too, and Julie, but

Kate Jerkens (12:31.399)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (12:59.445)
This is more spirits focused I guess for this particular review that I prepared for not that we can't talk about wine Sip source, I think

Julie Milroy (13:08.654)
You just add five points to it. Minus five, yeah.

Jessie Ott (13:12.433)
Add five points. All right. minus five. Okay. SIP source. So I thought this was really important because I'm a data person and they're using predictive analytics and they have a 90 % accuracy pre predicting Q4 of 2024 depletion rates. I think this is important to note because we're all going to be using predictive analytics. My company is going to be using predictive analytics. And I think it's extremely important, as well as their

Kate Jerkens (13:30.663)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (13:41.525)
They're looking at the category overall to be down 4 % and by 4.32 by the end of 2025. They look at category stabilization for rum, US whiskey, and vodka, and a slow to near flat growth for tequila and agave spirits. But this does not include anything that any external factors and tariffs that could affect this. This is just as is right now. Does anybody have anything they want to talk about?

or comment on or anything? Or should I just plow through this?

Kate Jerkens (14:16.128)
I just think that that's all going to be messy for we like the up and down on the tariffs right now is makes this this wholly unpredictable right now for everybody.

Jessie Ott (14:24.157)
Yeah, moving, a moving target. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (14:27.747)
It really is. It really is.

Jessie Ott (14:30.645)
So on the positive piece, we do have categories that are growing like crazy and it hasn't really changed, right? So we know the cannabis, THC, CBD is growing. The global market is growing. 1.16 billion in 23 and expected to grow 19 % from 24 to 30. The US is expected to be at 1.4 billion in 25. RTDs are

projected to reach 142 billion by 2029. And that low Cal and functional that we talked about Erica in our last review is 30 billion by 29. So we're gonna see a lot of increase on that category as well. Then of course, the NA BEV space, which we've seen in beer, we've seen with athletic brewing, really kind of plowing that space wide open in the last few years.

that is expected to grow to $600 or is 600 in '24 to eight almost $800 in'29. So, you know, NA beers $35 billion of that. So, you know, there's a lot of really good things that are happening out there. And it makes you wonder if we didn't have these categories where the category would be, we have not maybe changed our habits? We still be drinking the same thing. I don't know. It's a lot more fun now.

Kate Jerkens (15:37.551)
So

Jessie Ott (15:57.161)
But I know it's a lot more challenging, especially for the established brands, to keep their momentum going. And then I just had some newsworthy articles and announcements that I wanted to talk about that I thought were key. Here's one wine note. California wine supply drops to 24%, the lowest in 20 years. A lot of that is because they got burnt down.

Right? There's just not, they don't have the vines. then, then weather, weather and weather damage. you got Diageo that just announced their halting new investments through Distill Ventures Accelerator program. That's Poppi being sold to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion. Pepsi apparently did their own study to create their own brand and it didn't have the legs to do what they wanted it to do. So they decided to buy another company and they...

Caitlyn LuBell (16:39.654)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (16:45.031)
I mean. This is a holy cow at my house. We have three kids and they rage in age from eight to 17 and we.

Jessie Ott (16:55.519)
They decided to buy Poppi.

Kate Jerkens (17:04.417)
we fly through Poppi at our house. Everyone has their favorite flavors. And it's like, it's so brilliant. Everyone's so stoked. Like they're just like, it's such an incredible story too. Just an incredible story. They even sell merch at Target and they like sold out of their Poppi merch at Target. it's a star. Like it's their, they are, yeah, my daughter wears her hot pink Poppi sweatshirt. Like all of them are so into it. It's so funny. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (17:14.495)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (17:21.211)
my God.

Jessie Ott (17:21.416)
Really?

Julie Milroy (17:22.882)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (17:26.806)
Yeah, I saw that target. was, yeah, you saw it. was like, I didn't realize it was the soda, like the full pink. That's so cool.

Kate Jerkens (17:34.149)
Yeah, they've created a cult following and Pepsi's brilliant for doing this. I'm good on them.

Jessie Ott (17:40.371)
Yeah, well, I think they know they have to play in the space to survive because our administration is talking down on soda. So they're going to have to find alternative beverage. But Kate, to your point, I don't know that much. I tried to interview them a couple of years ago, but they were just too busy. is your children's age or is that their target market?

Kate Jerkens (17:52.433)
Correct. Yep.

Kate Jerkens (18:09.607)
would assume so. I think their target is moms, right, to buy it. Like I think they really want us to know that it's healthy. And so you read the ingredients, it's prebiotics, it's, you know, the flavors they make them as close to like my daughter loves the lemon lime. It tastes enough like a 7-Up or kind of Sprite type and they taste good enough and they are fun for them and it makes them feel like, I don't know, they just feel fun. They're really bright colored cans as well.

Jessie Ott (18:12.637)
Okay.

Kate Jerkens (18:34.745)
They've just done an incredible job. yeah, mean, it's definitely for, for me, it's kids. It's become like the acceptable sodas to put in a cooler and bring for after a game or, you know, kids are coming over and you're serving pizza and you can put out all these fun flavors of Poppi. And they make it easy. They sell tons of variety packs. They've partnered up with Costco. They have two separate types of variety packs and they just made it really easy for all of us to try it and to get our kids indoctrinated with it.

it's a story, it's two parents. It's parents, were like, they were pregnant and started this business and it's brilliant. In my opinion, they've just everything they've done with it. The marketing too, it's all TikTok and viral and all the things, you know?

Caitlyn LuBell (19:02.747)
And then.

Caitlyn LuBell (19:15.759)
sounds like they made it kind of like a lifestyle brand, right? I'm not that in the loop about it, but I definitely feel like it's become like a lifestyle brand. Especially, I didn't even know they were doing branded clothing and things like that. there you go.

Kate Jerkens (19:18.663)
For sure. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (19:29.671)
Oh yeah, they did hats and sweatshirts, t-shirts, everything at Target. My daughter thought, she's like, oh my gosh. And then my boys were upset because they were in the girls section. like, where's the boys? Everyone wanted their merch. But to your point, I don't know if you have young children or not, but I was talking to a colleague yesterday who doesn't have, she's older, she doesn't have young kids anymore. She's like, I've never heard of this brand. So you can tell that Target really is families, moms, young kids.

Jessie Ott (19:36.245)
That's awesome.

Jessie Ott (19:42.101)
you

Caitlyn LuBell (19:47.248)
No.

Kate Jerkens (19:58.821)
because it is such a clean alternative to soda. And they've made it fun. They finally made it fun. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (20:04.177)
That's great. Good for them.

Jessie Ott (20:04.621)
You know what'll be interesting, Kate, is if if when you know it gets within the PepsiCo distribution line, if they're going to be putting them in fountains in restaurants.

Kate Jerkens (20:15.579)
That would be amazing. son last night said, just hope they don't change anything. And I said, no, I actually think they have to. But at the same time, Poppi is everything Pepsi could not, doesn't have the ability to do. And it's working really well. anything, I'm like, you're going to see it everywhere now where, know, like we go to Angel City Football Club games in LA, like maybe that's a Pepsi stadium. So by next year, maybe we can buy Poppi there instead of.

Jessie Ott (20:16.883)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (20:20.426)
They will.

Jessie Ott (20:31.049)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (20:44.375)
starry or a diet Pepsi or whatever it is, you know, so that I think the distribution will for sure be really interesting.

Jessie Ott (20:50.899)
Yeah, that'll be great. Well, Erica, I did see that Poppi was on Shark Tank, much like BeatBox. And so I find it interesting that two of the brands making waves are brands that actually were on Shark Tank. And just curious if that had some kind of effect behind it. Because I do know that Poppi has a couple of actresses and artists that are backing them.

Kate Jerkens (21:00.167)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (21:19.623)
And then you've got BeatBox investor and spokesman now Shaquille O'Neal, which is brilliant. mean, it just happened. It literally, I think it just happened this week. It's like really recent and they've got his name on bottles on the Tetra Packs.

Kate Jerkens (21:26.111)
really? I didn't realize that, I just saw that there, wow.

Erica Duecy (21:26.246)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (21:28.654)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Duecy (21:38.607)
Yeah, I mean, think it's very smart for emerging brands to go on Shark Tank, not because they may even come out with a deal. Like Little Saints, for example, Megan went on there, she didn't come out with a deal, but it was fantastic for brand exposure. So I think being on Shark Tank, like any brand that has the opportunity to do that and that has a sustainable or a fairly good business model should go on.

Kate Jerkens (21:49.723)
I was about to say, yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (21:56.123)
Yeah.

Erica Duecy (22:08.099)
Shark Tank just because of that audience reach. And I think that's what, you know, that's what something like the Shaquille O'Neal relationship with BeatBox does is, you know, they are probably saying like, hey, we are not reaching a broad enough audience. How can we do this at scale without taking out, you know, Super Bowl ads or whatever? Like what is going to be a more kind of longer term sustainable relationship?

Kate Jerkens (22:31.376)
No.

Jessie Ott (22:32.17)
Yeah.

Erica Duecy (22:36.251)
probably, I don't know, I haven't even heard about the Shaquille O'Neal involvement with BeatBox, but I'm imagining now that he is probably an investor, right? So I think like that type of involvement of getting people who have huge social media followings and or exposure on major broadcast networks, that sort of thing.

is really a smart path forward for a lot of brands who can incorporate that into their models.

Jessie Ott (23:08.019)
Yeah, for sure. LVMH bought a steak in French bloom, which is a 0 % sparkling, know, Diageo with ritual and you know, it's a thing. And then you have these big, go ahead.

Kate Jerkens (23:09.071)
Caitlyn LuBell (23:20.209)
Frigina, Mionetto, they launched a non-alch Mionetto and a non-alch Aperol that are both out in the market. And they're the top importing sparkling wine outside of Champagne Company, but they're super innovative. I love the company and yeah, they're rolling out their non-alc booze-free versions as well.

Kate Jerkens (23:49.414)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (23:49.811)
Yeah. Well, and then you have these these these other beverage companies that haven't really played in our space. They're now launching cocktails. So you've got Minute Maid, which is a wine based cocktail, and you've got Kraft Heinz coming out with Crystal Light cocktails. Have you guys seen these?

Caitlyn LuBell (24:11.078)
Nope.

Erica Duecy (24:11.887)
I think it's very smart. It's very smart of them because of the nostalgia factor. think, you know, I think that right now is a challenging time for a lot of people for various reasons, know, financial reasons and so forth, political reasons. But I think tapping into familiarity and nostalgia with bringing these brands to

Julie Milroy (24:12.076)
No, but... I mean...

Kate Jerkens (24:15.879)
Erica Duecy (24:36.529)
the marketplace for adults who really enjoyed them when they were young is very smart strategy. I'm only surprised that it took this long.

Jessie Ott (24:46.781)
Yeah, yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (24:47.056)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (24:48.94)
Yeah, I'd curious about some of the labeling requirements, right? Because if you think of Minute Maid, that's always been targeted towards kids. I think the last time I had it was when I was a kid or I bought it for my son because I remembered having it. But I do see a huge trend, you know, and I think it's been slowly progressing, but now at a quicker pace of CPG really getting into

Kate Jerkens (24:59.439)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (25:03.327)
Yep.

Kate Jerkens (25:04.145)
You know.

Julie Milroy (25:18.466)
the beverage alcohol space, right? I mean, we saw it with Pepsi and they've started, they haven't really acted on it, but they did create a division for alcohol. And I think we're gonna see more and more of it. the only thing that I would add to the newsworthy is the recent news of Tito's and Brown Forman leaving.

Kate Jerkens (25:33.703)
.

Julie Milroy (25:46.424)
their traditional beverage alcohol distributors in California to join a beer distributor, Reyes, right? So I think we're seeing a lot more of the crossover and just with some different companies that I've been talking with, there's a lot of interest right now as the wine and spirits kind of distribution space is getting disrupted by beer, CPG,

Jessie Ott (25:50.122)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (26:12.45)
Yeah. It's interesting. I would say I totally agree on that. I would just say as a parent, as a parent, just need to go, think the Minute Maid stuff, the Sunny D and vodka, have, I find it all very problematic. I mean, I know that they,

Julie Milroy (26:15.874)
that I think we're gonna see more of it and it's gonna really come out of nowhere, I like.

Jessie Ott (26:21.587)
Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (26:24.72)
Me too.

Kate Jerkens (26:33.329)
feel the need to get into it. there's this, for me, almost a glorification of alcohol when you do that. My kid's favorite juice is now going to be with vodka. I mean, we don't drink, sorry, no offense to Minamade. We don't drink Minamade at our house, but I'm just saying in general, Or the Sunny Delight in vodka. I find that all to be really challenging because I live in California where you can buy booze everywhere, right? So in certain places where it's a liquor controlled state and you're only

Julie Milroy (26:52.845)
What?

Kate Jerkens (27:02.065)
seeing that in liquor store, that's one thing, but you're walking through the gas station or a 7-Eleven or the grocery store, you're seeing that the juice aisle is right behind the liquor aisle. I don't know. just feels... I have a conflict. There's a conflict there for me.

Julie Milroy (27:15.33)
Well, that's really the thing that surprises me because when you look at like wine labeling laws and liquor labeling laws, they're so specific. you can't have, I remember we had a wine that had like somewhat.

you know, of a naked body or a body part and then it couldn't go through. But all of a sudden, you know, you've got kids brands being portrayed, you know, being kind of rebranded with alcohol. So it'd be interesting, Jessie, you should get an attorney on here. Know a good one. Ryan Malkin, who specializes in beverage alcohol. yeah, you know them. But that's

Kate Jerkens (27:33.692)
Right.

Kate Jerkens (27:47.164)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (27:49.321)
Yeah, he

Jessie Ott (27:53.267)
Yeah, he's coming. He's coming on.

Kate Jerkens (27:53.735)
It's also the THC of it all too, right? To make sure that the gummies, the weed gummies and stuff don't look exciting. Kids love a gummy, y'all. Like, if you don't make those look scary, they will grab any gummy they need.

Julie Milroy (27:58.702)
Kids don't think it's funny. Right. Right. And like the cereal.

Jessie Ott (28:01.118)
Yeah

Caitlyn LuBell (28:06.256)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (28:08.972)
Yeah, and apparently adults do too. So, but it's, think that's like a worth all conversation and how are they getting through it? Right? Is it because there are these huge known reputable organizations that are able to just like push them out? but yeah, it'd be interesting to learn.

Jessie Ott (28:09.253)
Yeah. Yep.

Kate Jerkens (28:12.327)
I mean, yeah.

Kate Jerkens (28:19.547)
Agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (28:30.949)
Probably.

Jessie Ott (28:32.265)
Yeah, I think of what my my first thoughts were with this Minute Maid and Crystal Light is what what does that distribution look like? Are they able to utilize that same distribution network or did they have to go adjacent? You know, and then where do you merchandise that? You can't put them together in the same spot, right? And, you know, if it's

Kate Jerkens (28:33.606)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (28:42.631)
Right.

Jessie Ott (28:57.479)
If it's wine, do you put it in the wine cooler? I guess, right? Like I haven't seen it in a store yet. So I'm just curious as to how they're, you know, putting these into your point, Kate Tude, about being like a 7-Eleven or something that could be, that could be really tricky. So hopefully they're maybe decreasing that Minute Maid brand name and making it more of a cocktail.

Julie Milroy (29:00.13)
Yes.

Kate Jerkens (29:15.094)
Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting.

Jessie Ott (29:24.425)
you know,

Julie Milroy (29:27.31)
Yeah, you can just add crystal light and it's got like dried tequila or something. You just add it to your water and have a cocktail.

Caitlyn LuBell (29:33.985)
Yeah, really.

Jessie Ott (29:34.581)
Yeah, that would be a true seed. Where do I sign up?

Kate Jerkens (29:37.04)
That's a whole thing right there, Dry tequila in there, I like it.

Julie Milroy (29:41.878)
not dried tequila, like dried alcohol that dissolves.

Kate Jerkens (29:47.079)
astronaut alcohol or something.

Jessie Ott (29:50.559)
So.

Caitlyn LuBell (29:51.589)
the world is kind of getting on us, right? About all the negativity surrounded by alcohol. Yet these major CPG companies are like, wait, wait for us, we want in. And it's like, wait, I thought we were the evil Satan over here that causes cancer and kills people. And now, these major corporations, want in, they want in our world.

Jessie Ott (30:03.443)
Right. Right.

Kate Jerkens (30:07.143)
country.

Julie Milroy (30:15.608)
Just wait till they add alcohol to Hawaiian punch. mean, you know.

Kate Jerkens (30:16.711)
END

It's coming.

Caitlyn LuBell (30:19.782)
Man.

Erica Duecy (30:20.741)
Well, so many of the products that are alcohol are already Hawaiian punch. Like those are some of the best performing RTDs right now are the Hawaiian punch ones. Yeah, exactly.

Julie Milroy (30:27.054)
They just have to put a new label on it and get the rights to the label.

Kate Jerkens (30:30.597)
Yeah. But Caitlyn, I agree with you. It feels counterintuitive. they talk about the spirits world, like the ceiling is falling, which it's not. It's all stabilization. But it's the way that everyone's talking about it. It's an interesting choice to to dive headfirst into it with a very well known non-alcoholics. Like why would you get involved? You know?

Caitlyn LuBell (30:34.961)
Come in.

Caitlyn LuBell (30:49.809)
You know, it reminds me, I worked for Jessie as well. We worked for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and at that time they were owned by Philip Morris. as we're talking about this, they just keep thinking about how Philip Morris, which is US, they own US Tobacco, they own Marlboro. I mean, all the cigarettes, right? And then all of a sudden they got into Juul because they were like, they, which ended up being, having a lot of challenges and a major problem, but for-

Kate Jerkens (30:59.047)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (31:07.174)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (31:17.637)
Kind of the same reason, They were like, okay, we have to diversify. People aren't smoking cigarettes. We have to do other things. So they started doing other things, but it didn't necessarily have the most positive results because of children getting ahold of these products. you know, so I don't know, just make anything about all that. I never even heard about this until right now. And I'm just thinking like, gosh, I thought we were evil monsters that killed.

Erica Duecy (31:30.097)
you

Kate Jerkens (31:30.629)
Correct.

Jessie Ott (31:32.244)
Yep.

Kate Jerkens (31:35.611)
You're right.

Kate Jerkens (31:40.091)
Me neither.

Caitlyn LuBell (31:45.307)
people with our alcohol. And now, now the big billionaires are going to try and get into our pockets.

Jessie Ott (31:46.131)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (31:46.569)
you

Yeah, Surgeon General says it causes cancer, but let's get right into it with our orange juice. I don't know.

Jessie Ott (31:52.309)
And it's.

Jessie Ott (31:57.033)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (31:57.103)
And let's mix it with, I mean, Hawaiian Punch causes cancer too, so might as well throw them together, right?

Kate Jerkens (32:02.087)
Yeah, a little red food coloring.

Jessie Ott (32:02.805)
Great. Yeah, a little yellow and red.

Caitlyn LuBell (32:07.754)
gosh, it's that... Horrible.

Jessie Ott (32:08.415)
Well, it's also one of these things where these companies are producing the stuff you're not supposed to eat, you know, the processed foods you're not supposed to eat.

Caitlyn LuBell (32:16.463)
Yeah, but that's the thing. That's why they're like, look, look over here. Look over here. Because that we're not doing that. Look over here. We're launching booze. what?

Kate Jerkens (32:17.403)
You're right.

Jessie Ott (32:21.3)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (32:25.875)
Yeah, but you know, as as someone who went through breast cancer this past year, I interviewed my oncologist and I just when that came out, that announcement came out, I was just furious because I went through radiation. I went through my oncologist and my surgeon and not a single one of them talked to me about my alcohol use. And in fact, I have a brochure where it was ranked number 12.

Kate Jerkens (32:27.015)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (32:46.547)
Correct.

Erica Duecy (32:47.75)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (32:51.793)
And the media, all they want to do is blame alcohol. And I watched it the last fall through January. They maybe bring up dense breast tissue once or twice, but it lands on alcohol. And I'm furious. yeah. I mean, yeah. And so I asked my oncologist, mean, like, what's

Kate Jerkens (32:58.389)
Yeah. Yeah. It's too easy. That's just too easy. Like what, you know?

Caitlyn LuBell (33:09.851)
Like we're the scapegoat now.

Jessie Ott (33:15.547)
But what's your opinion on this? And she's just basically like, look, breast cancer, I don't associate with drinking. That's more like, you know, throat cancer, mouth cancer, tongue, whatever kind of things. there's so many other factors with breast cancer. Alcohol isn't like, anyway, don't get me started. I'll stop. But but I was fired up on that on that on that podcast. I was just so frustrated.

Kate Jerkens (33:31.621)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (33:35.151)
Yes.

Kate Jerkens (33:38.245)
Hahaha!

Kate Jerkens (33:43.599)
Yeah, rightfully so, rightfully so.

Caitlyn LuBell (33:45.606)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (33:45.619)
Yeah, yeah. Is there any other? I wanted to talk, swing back to Kate. You guys use Reyes, right? In certain markets. Are you using them in California?

Kate Jerkens (33:57.355)
We do not we're actually with RNDC. So yeah, so it's so we're watching this. And I'm based in California. So it's like very noisy here. We're watching it very eagerly to see what it's going to look like and how that changes because obviously, RNDC is our their partner in 30 states, right. But in California, they're a major player. And that those are that's two huge sources of

Jessie Ott (33:59.218)
You are. Okay.

Kate Jerkens (34:21.935)
revenue that are leaving in the next two months. And already there's been some changes. It'll be very interesting to watch. But a lot of it just came down to margin, right? That's a lot of what it came down to. so it's not necessary. I'm going to speak out of school, but I don't know that I wasn't in any of those rooms, but I wonder if it's really about Reyes and their ability to distribute or the margins or what it is or what those agreements are. kind of just dying to see. I'm literally just dying to see what happens in the next few months.

what it is that they offered or what they're bringing to the table to help these two very major conglomerates, brands, what they're going to do for them in California. It'll be so interesting to watch.

Jessie Ott (35:00.319)
Well, do you think they have more people, salespeople? Because a lot of times that's a defining factor for a lot of companies. More feet on the street.

Kate Jerkens (35:11.601)
I don't think that they...

Caitlyn LuBell (35:11.793)
They're geographically more streamlined. So in New York, Manhattan Beer has a division, it's Manhattan Beer, right? That has Blueprint. Yeah, I think so. And they've had a spirits division for a long time. There are quite a few spirits beer distributors in New York that have been selling booze, but a lot of times it's well alcohol and things like that, but they've been in the space for quite a while.

But one of the things that's really nice about the way that they run is their territories are like geography based rather than relationship based. And so someone will have the Upper East Side from, you know, 96 to 72nd, and that's their territory. And so the account visits are definitely more streamlined.

Kate Jerkens (35:41.595)
Yep.

Kate Jerkens (35:51.427)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (35:59.665)
Caitlyn LuBell (36:07.493)
That's the positive spin on it. I think a lot of companies are thinking that the grass is greener because they're not getting the attention from Southern Breakthrough and RNDC the way that they used to. Blatantly, they're telling them like, we're too busy to sell your stuff. So everybody's kind of looking at the grass on the other side. I guess you're right, Kate. Is that the question? Is the grass greener? We all have to see, right?

Kate Jerkens (36:30.062)
We'll have to. I think the best place to try it is California though. So my thing with New York, and we actually use some beer distributors, including in New York, the challenge in New York is your beer guys are selling in one particular store and liquor is sold in a different type of store. So that is not as streamlined as it should be. And those are those are challenges. In California, like I said, you can sell booze wherever you want to. So.

Caitlyn LuBell (36:52.357)
both. Right.

Kate Jerkens (36:53.989)
there is an ability to get distribution maybe in places that the RNDC guys weren't going into because their book, their portfolio didn't indicate going into XYZ convenience store or gas station or whatever it might be. Not saying that any of those brands want to be in those places either necessarily, but I think it'll be really interesting with Reyes because you can sell everything together in markets where beer is separate than spirits. I think that's where it's a little bit stickier.

But it'll be really interesting to watch. And here's the thing, I live in California. I see Tito's and I see Jack Daniel's everywhere I go, so I'm curious where more distribution is, but maybe it's bigger and more visible through them. It'll be really interesting. I mean, think they've got a great footprint here already, so it'll be really interesting to watch for sure.

Caitlyn LuBell (37:26.438)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (37:43.138)
Yeah, I've always been, and it's crazy because I've never worked in the beer industry, but it's an industry that I've always looked up to and described throughout my 20 years in wine. And the reason is, is like having a family-owned restaurant as a young adult, my mom running it, I remember the beer distributor, I mean, coming in.

all the time, right? So I think the difference and I used to, when I was in sales, be like, why don't we like the beer distributors? Why don't we do this like the beer distributors? Because the way the beer distributives, such a simple thing is they would have the service person come and make sure you pay your check, you know, make sure you pay your bills that.

The beers aren't expired. They switch them out if they're expired. They make sure that your coolers are full. Like they are on it day to day. And then depending on the size of your account, we have a small family owned restaurant. The actual sales person would come like.

Kate Jerkens (38:36.551)
Interesting.

Julie Milroy (38:42.868)
once a month, you know, and it was a big deal when they would come and they would come in with like value add, like, here's a couple of new products, you know, we do you want to do a radio advertisement, it costs this much, but we're going to promote it. They bring stuff to you. And I feel like dish, you know, wine and spirits distribution just kind of missed that. And beers built, I mean, if you think of any promotions, whatever it was, the beer companies point of sale, you walk in, you know,

They give you everything, you know, from the neon lights to this. so my experience working with Tito's, you know, at Southern, I never worked directly with Brown Forming because they've always been aligned with RNDC, but Tito's is a huge brand. You see it everywhere, but according to them, not everywhere. And they're looking for

Kate Jerkens (39:29.409)
Right.

Julie Milroy (39:31.22)
all those independents, the stuff like, in California, I get it. Like if it's not a chain account, nobody wants to deal with it because all the business and all the volume come from the chains. And where the beer distributors are, like Caitlyn, you mentioned, they are everywhere. If you have a beer, wine, spirit license, you're going to have a beer rep that's there every day. And I think with Tito's, that's kind of what they were looking for, you know, when like,

Kate Jerkens (39:38.098)
Thank you.

Caitlyn LuBell (39:46.417)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (39:50.448)
Right.

Julie Milroy (39:57.474)
going back to activations. When was the last time you saw like a spirits, you know, like a promo or, or anything like that. And so I'm feeling like they're seeing the opportunity. And yes, I think in markets where there's separate beer and spirits, like they're going to have to like really perfect that. if they stick to the foundational things that the beer industry has done and make little tweaks, I think it could really put up a.

Kate Jerkens (40:24.197)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (40:26.574)
a disruption within the industry that everybody's kind of been waiting for.

Kate Jerkens (40:32.54)
Yeah. Interesting.

Caitlyn LuBell (40:32.721)
Well, and to be honest, I've been really kind of sitting and watching, waiting for some news to start popping up about laws and regulations changing in New York because of the RTD, non-alcoholic, functional beverages, things like that, where they can't put that non-alcoholic gin or booze-free gin on the same shelf, right? And now, we need more distributors. Let's look at the beer companies, to your point, Kate.

I'm very curious if, cause I feel like there are certain things about New York, like very old school, you're not making us a chain market. We all know that story, but to change the liquor license in itself, I think could be potentially something interesting because the state could tax more depending on maybe, you know, implement additional taxes or make some additional money. But I mean,

Kate Jerkens (41:22.462)
Yeah. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (41:31.843)
Yeah, I had a friend that lives in Jersey that was talking about working for, I think it was the little Saint, and she was like, you're gonna have to show me the liquor stores to go to. And I'm like, you're not going to liquor stores with that. And she's like, what? I said, you're gonna be going to bodegas and grocery stores. And she was like, what? She's from the wine and spirits worlds, you know? And I think that in order, as consumer demand,

Kate Jerkens (41:42.985)
Yeah, so yeah, so restricted, yeah.

Jessie Ott (41:50.933)
.

Kate Jerkens (41:52.977)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (41:59.505)
continues a rise for RDDs and functional beverages, you know, maybe not cannabis, but other functional NA's and things. I don't know. I'm curious to see if New York kind of makes some changes, SLA makes some changes to say, okay, wait, hold on. We're missing money here that we could get, right?

Julie Milroy (42:07.34)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (42:17.761)
Yeah.

Erica Duecy (42:18.757)
Yeah. And I think there's just such opportunity. Like right now, if you look at the non-alcoholic landscape of distribution and also the THC landscape, it's so fragmented. would say I get like at least a couple of questions every week from producers trying to find distribution in one state or another and just hitting walls. And a lot of THC companies that I've talked with have now gone to self-distribution because they're like, look, if we can't get in with like

Kate Jerkens (42:37.786)
Mm.

Erica Duecy (42:48.697)
a good beer distributor. Beer distributors seem to be like the best path for a lot of these companies in the states where that's legal. But trying to work with either traditional wine spirits distributors often is a challenge or they're not yet quite ready to go into that space. And all of these sorts of challenges of fragmentation in the marketplace are just creating tremendous inefficiency.

Kate Jerkens (43:11.353)
Yeah.

Erica Duecy (43:16.057)
And so I think that either the laws are gonna have to change or just your practices are gonna have to change. Like something's gonna give here. And these products are becoming so popular and it's such a huge economic opportunity that I think the companies who get on this quickly are the ones who are going to reap the benefits.

Caitlyn LuBell (43:30.673)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (43:34.301)
Okay. For sure.

Caitlyn LuBell (43:36.367)
Yeah, I think I could see changes happening again, because there's money to be captured. There's taxes to be captured and it's not going to hurt independent retailers in states like New York. It would help them. and New York is all about supporting independent retailers and there's other states that function similar to us as well. But sure, help those indie retailers. They're the ones that are going to petition and say, we're losing business.

people are drinking less and they want that on out, let me sell it in my liquor store, then, you it's gonna be interesting the next five years, I'll tell you that.

Kate Jerkens (44:05.529)
Great.

Kate Jerkens (44:12.813)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (44:16.629)
To say the least. Yeah, yeah for sure. Does anybody remember Treasury moving to a beer distributor five, six, seven years ago?

Caitlyn LuBell (44:19.643)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (44:30.156)
just remember them moving a lot regularly.

Caitlyn LuBell (44:32.955)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (44:33.333)
Okay, I just, I just, don't know whatever came of that. I feel like that was the first big, big move that I remember hearing about when I, and that was in California, I think. Um, and then now says,

Kate Jerkens (44:44.135)
Yeah. Well, and then Sazerac, I mean, Sazerac moved away from all traditional distribution the last few years. And I know a people that work for Sazerac. I have not heard of anything negative. And they did that nationally.

Caitlyn LuBell (44:50.022)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (45:00.169)
Yeah. Yeah, that was huge. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (45:03.131)
Big move. It's a big move, yeah.

Jessie Ott (45:06.558)
So is there any other news worthy topic you guys can think of that you want to bring up before I just jump? I'll just show you a couple slides on brands. It's nothing.

Kate Jerkens (45:15.789)
I was going say, how did we do with your slides? we get that? We stopped you on slide two or three already. Good. Okay, good. Okay.

Jessie Ott (45:18.805)
No, no, no, it's, it's, there's literally just four slides. and it's just brand stuff now. And I just, I got tired of looking at that sheet instead of your faces. So I was like, I would rather look at your faces. So I, I stopped sharing. Do you want to jump into brands and see what, see what happens, see what we can dig into? Okay.

Julie Milroy (45:19.266)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (45:21.229)
Ha ha ha.

Kate Jerkens (45:31.665)
Hahaha!

Julie Milroy (45:39.534)
Sure.

Jessie Ott (45:48.511)
So I have a subscription to Circana through FinTech and their data is through March 2nd. And the chart we're looking at right now is 52 weeks ending March 2nd. And I know it's an eye chart, but once I show you what it is, your eyes will refocus. And so this is food, drug, mass, merchandisers, Walmart, club, dollar, military, and e-commerce data. And so to your point about Tito's,

um, Kate being everywhere. So this CWD, so the first one is, is sales. This is dollars lost or, or gained. This is the percentage change. And then this right here is your percentage of sales in the highest volume stores. So in other words, Tito's is in 92.95 % of those big volume stores.

Kate Jerkens (46:19.015)
Yes.

Jessie Ott (46:48.361)
So in this particular of the spirits industry, it's just looks in the spirits industry within food, drug, mass. So to your point, Caitlyn, on the independence, they're not here, right? So maybe Tito's is wanting to get more into the independence because you're not gonna gain a whole lot here. But I think what's interesting about this is it shows where the opportunities are.

Kate Jerkens (47:16.231)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (47:16.597)
So if you look at Crown, obviously they had that blackberry flavor this year. They're in 92, almost 92 % of the stores. But then you look at High Noon, these top 10 or 15, they're not gonna get much more distribution in this channel. But what's interesting is you get down to Don Julio, which is probably 12, and Cutwater, they're in about 80%. You go down here.

Kate Jerkens (47:34.343)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (47:44.831)
to the next level and you're in your 80s and your 70s. So there's still growth opportunities for some of these brands. You look at BuzzVols, they're only in 70 % of the high volume stores. That's a lot of growth for a brand that just gained $20 million in sales. That's not small. Right? And so if you look at the next chart, I sorted it by...

Kate Jerkens (48:06.299)
Right. Right.

Jessie Ott (48:14.101)
um, dollars growth or dollar sales versus last year. So, um, in other words, high noon had $37 million in sales over last year. Again, there are 92 % of the stores. So what's their strategy? Is it going to just continue to blow it out? I mean, they're not going to really get more distribution here. Are they going to have to come up with new flavors? You know, I'm not, I'm not seeing them slow down anytime soon, but I'm just saying it's kind of an indicator of.

Kate Jerkens (48:34.855)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (48:44.549)
when does a brand mature? Tito's finally did, right? You know, Cutwater is in 82%. You've got Buzzballz 70, Don Julio 77. So there's a lot of interesting metrics in here to look at and some interesting new brands. So have you guys heard of this Grand Mallow?

sold almost $2.5 million. It's a YouTuber. And it's a tamarind flavored tequila.

Erica Duecy (49:20.901)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (49:22.187)
No kidding.

Jessie Ott (49:23.121)
And then there's this minute made.

Caitlyn LuBell (49:24.337)
I think I did hear about it.

Jessie Ott (49:27.669)
This is like, you know, in volume brand, brand ranks 166, but yet it's in the top 15. It sold over seven and a half million dollars. That's the name. Then that's I'm wondering about distribution. It's only, it's not even in 20 % of the stores.

Kate Jerkens (49:30.257)
There it is.

Kate Jerkens (49:45.05)
Holy cow, yeah.

Jessie Ott (49:46.995)
Yeah. So there's just some really interesting things happening. you know, Erica, kind of like from your researcher point of view and being a writer, it's like, what are they doing? You know, what is happening behind the scenes that we don't know? Is it investment? Is it Shark Tank? You know, is it there? Are they researching exactly what to do before they do it? You know?

Kate Jerkens (49:54.603)
you

Erica Duecy (50:13.765)
how are they gaining volume? Is that, that's the question.

Jessie Ott (50:15.751)
Yeah, like how are they winning at this game? Right?

Erica Duecy (50:19.777)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, it's a lot of the brands that I see here, like I'm just looking down at like Vibe, Twisted Sips. And for example, like that's a that's a Gallo brand. So you look at they look at their growth, their growth is like massive over the prior year. It looks like they, you know, their entire sales for last year was the same as I this is like so small, I can't even see it. But

Jessie Ott (50:47.004)
Sorry.

Erica Duecy (50:47.011)
Anyway, I was looking at this earlier and like the entire sales last year were the same as like the first three months or the first two months of this year. So I think like, you know, a lot of these brands that are really up at the high end, they already have in terms of gains, already have really impressive sales teams around them, you know, established distribution, you know, ViBE being part of being part of Gallo

Jessie Ott (51:15.679)
Yeah, that 44%.

Erica Duecy (51:15.919)
Right? So like, I think the brands that we see really, you know, getting a ton of gains, irregardless of like what channel they're in, it's because the infrastructure is there. And I think that's why you see, you know, the Minute Maids and those sorts of like more familiar brands doing partnerships with, you know, big alcohol companies and working with top distributors, because I think the biggest challenge for

any type of alcohol brand getting into wide distribution channels right now and gaining traction is that brand visibility. So these brands, if they're well known, that really helps them get ahead in the game. And if they're then partnering with established distributors and or established multinationals or major sort top 25 drinks companies,

Kate Jerkens (51:46.543)
Thank you.

Jessie Ott (51:59.989)
you

Erica Duecy (52:13.741)
then you see them gain that traction really quickly. And that's like really where you can make an impact. there are other companies on here. Like I think from my perspective, the most impressive one on here is Carbless, which is about number six or so there. yeah. So Carbless is fascinating to me because yeah. And, and so Carbless is

Jessie Ott (52:27.898)
huh.

and 21 % of stores.

Kate Jerkens (52:39.318)
What is it?

Erica Duecy (52:40.495)
So this is fascinating to me. It's essentially like a very low calorie, a kind of like keto friendly, very low sugar grams, spiked seltzer. And what's interesting to me about this is their trajectory has just been mind blowing and it's a completely regional brand. You can't even get it outside of like five states. So the founder who's

Kate Jerkens (53:10.055)
Interesting.

Erica Duecy (53:10.321)
I'm trying to remember, I just interviewed him, Kraner, Adam Kraner. So he is the founder and president of this and they started in the Midwest and they had this very narrow and deep market expansion strategy. And they used that essentially like they flooded the market in a couple key states.

They didn't even think about national distribution. They were approached many times for national distribution and they have said like, no thanks. So they have really gone this deep strategy and are just now outselling competitors in the space because you know, these products, they deliver on flavor, they're well priced. They're kind of fitting that gap in the spirits-based RTDs of like very, very low sugar grams, like even lower.

Caitlyn LuBell (53:39.439)
Yeah.

Erica Duecy (54:01.229)
than a lot of the existing products out there. And they're kind of just the, you know, lemon, black raspberry, cranberry, but it's like a brand that had a very specific strategy and went out and executed very effectively, completely independently owned five year old startup. And to see that kind of traction in, when you look at the other top of the chart and all of those other brands are owned by, you know, major drinks companies.

Kate Jerkens (54:05.351)
.

Kate Jerkens (54:18.682)
Erica Duecy (54:30.561)
is really, I think, one of the most fascinating stories. And I have that coming up in two or three weeks on the Business of Drinks podcast.

Jessie Ott (54:30.939)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (54:38.524)
It's so interesting. think the other one that I find similar in terms of just what you were talking about is Surfside, which I had never even heard of until I was in Pennsylvania. And it's like Jersey, Pennsylvania. So it's all over all the Pennsylvania, their liquor stores, like huge displays. And if you live in like Jersey, Jersey Shore, all that whole area, that's what you drink.

Jessie Ott (54:40.149)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (54:45.876)
I haven't heard of it.

Kate Jerkens (55:00.635)
Like they just were really smart about it. like, never, it hasn't made it over here yet. I don't believe in you look at how well they're doing and they have so much more ground to cover still, you know?

Erica Duecy (55:09.327)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we did an interesting podcast episode with the founder there. you know, that Clement Pappas is his name. And that one was so fascinating to me because what they did is they were the first sort of hard lemonade or one of the early ones that was just like,

Julie Milroy (55:10.796)
I think that's so important.

Erica Duecy (55:30.949)
were vodka and lemonade, no sparkling, no bubbles there, just like very easy to drink. And then they have the hard iced teas, but their difference was to say like, hey, we're not a malt based product, we're like a vodka based product. And one of the very first ones to say, we're not doing a sparkling product, it's a totally flat product. that was just, their traction has been equally impressive over the past couple of years. And like, again, totally independently owned.

Kate Jerkens (55:41.252)
Mmm.

Kate Jerkens (56:01.253)
Yeah, very interesting.

Caitlyn LuBell (56:02.225)
I think we talked about it last time. It's that it's that idea of picking some states and just really digging in and just blowing it up and then rolling out to other states. you know, we talk to brands every day, new brands, and we suggest it and we're like, look, you know, you're going to do what you're going to do for your business strategy. But this is what we see as success. Pick a few secondary states, too.

Kate Jerkens (56:19.841)
Thank

Kate Jerkens (56:25.959)
Thanks.

Caitlyn LuBell (56:31.843)
and just drive it in and just blow it up. And then you have proof of concept and then you can roll it out to other states, but they always just want to be in New York and Florida. And we're like, we can help you, definitely. But this is how we see real success go is when brands do something like what you guys are talking about right now with these two brands.

Kate Jerkens (56:34.982)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (56:59.482)
I mean, New York and Florida equals lots of money and a lot of people on the, you need feet on the street. those are not, you gotta have money and feet, you know? And if they're not, I think New York's probably one of the hardest markets, honestly. I mean, the independence of it all, the breadth of it all, the number of, the number of stores and bars and restaurants, I mean, it's exhausting when you think about it.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:07.439)
Yeah. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (57:12.236)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (57:23.564)
Yeah, I mean, think there's like that localized piece of it, right, is like the brand loyalty. And, you know, I feel like it's like very old school, like actually building the brand, you know, starting.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:24.784)
And

Julie Milroy (57:36.11)
in your local community. So I think more so than, you know, big market versus small market is really like focused on where is the product created from and then building it out. And that kind of sounds like what Carbless did, like being in the Midwest and then just starting to expand because once you, you know, people love localized. I mean, you know, if it's something that they can relate to, and I think that that's

Caitlyn LuBell (58:00.657)
It's a great point.

Julie Milroy (58:04.99)
what these brands can do to compete against some of these bigger ones is going on that local factor. I mean, it's great to see it looks like they're just tapping the surface on their growth.

Kate Jerkens (58:20.112)
Yeah, smart. mean, you see it like back in the days I went to UCLA when Red Bull was coming on the market, right? And the way Red Bull did things, they just were like, our target audience is just going to be college kids. And they just went hard. They hired brand people just on college campuses. You know what I mean? It's like when you do stuff and you're just so specific, I mean, the way that just blew up, it's just, you know, kind of the same model. Just go all in on a particular market or, you know, a particular

audience and huge. mean, I couldn't we couldn't go on a trip in college without there being cases of Red Bull and every bus and ever in front of every hotel room like it was just nonstop, you know, typing like a million miles a minute, because it was just everywhere.

Jessie Ott (59:05.045)
Sorry ladies, I literally spilled my entire cup of tea everywhere. So I had to quickly clean, but I was listening and loved all the dialogue. So apologies for disappearing. I didn't have to go to the bathroom or anything. You want to switch over to year to date and see the differences?

Kate Jerkens (59:06.703)
You okay?

Julie Milroy (59:09.966)
Caitlyn LuBell (59:10.297)
Caitlyn LuBell (59:22.074)
Yeah

Erica Duecy (59:22.245)
Ha ha ha ha.

Julie Milroy (59:23.022)
you

Jessie Ott (59:32.885)
I didn't find it to be all that different, just to be honest, slightly, but you still got the high noons, the buzz balls on the rocks. you don't see the brands that we were just talking about as much as we did before. So it'll be interesting to see where they end up, you know, this year.

Julie Milroy (59:43.992)
That's enough.

Jessie Ott (59:57.973)
But this is slightly depressing to look at, right? And speaking about the tariffs and Crown Royal, my brother-in-law came home the other day and I said, how dare you? You can't have Crown in this house. Because you grow up in the industry and yeah, Diageo is always the double-headed monster and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, but seriously, they were offering it $10 off. And so what I...

Kate Jerkens (01:00:00.231)
It's a lot of night, yeah.

Erica Duecy (01:00:26.193)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (01:00:27.163)
cow.

Jessie Ott (01:00:27.879)
What I'm wondering what they're doing, and I've kind of been reading that a little bit, is that they're hedging their bets and bringing in a bunch of volume and then they ended up paying on the storage end. But they're trying to, I wouldn't call it panty load so much, but they're trying to bring in as much as they can to not pay the tariff. That's my guess.

Julie Milroy (01:00:50.158)
Well, I'm sure the suppliers are you know, and trying to get their last biggest, you know, orders from distributors.

Kate Jerkens (01:00:51.911)
Good call.

Jessie Ott (01:00:57.833)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:01:01.222)
you know, before any of the potential tariffs hit. But I think what's interesting is with Canada, because when, you know, they started talking about the tariffs, the tariffs, like the first thought for North America was like Mexico, tequila, and being such a huge category. But like, it's very interesting hearing that there's so much tension between, you know,

Jessie Ott (01:01:05.866)
Yep.

Julie Milroy (01:01:28.426)
in regards to the Canadian and the US relationship when it comes to alcohol, like the Canadians are pissed, like they're already taking and they, you we think of liquor, yeah, they've got Crown Royals, so maybe they're not like a huge bourbon.

importer, but when it comes to premium wine, they're the biggest for American wineries. So this directly will impact, you know, a lot of our American wineries. So

Kate Jerkens (01:01:48.583)
Absolutely.

Jessie Ott (01:01:51.263)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:02:02.702)
And I feel like there's a lot of like, we have Canadian friends that come to Miami, you know, every multiple times of the year, and they're all like, we're not coming back, you know, like they're, they're taking it very personally. And I'm just curious to see how that evolves, right? I mean, it's one thing if Canada was just like a small piece of the pie for the American wine industry, but it's a huge piece of it. And

Jessie Ott (01:02:26.963)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:02:27.062)
Yeah, but it's a huge piece of their economy, right? So remember, Canada is all provincial, all that money is going into their government's hands. When you're talking about the OLCB being the single biggest buyer of liquor in the world, and how much money and how much they mark up our products there,

Caitlyn LuBell (01:02:27.099)
Huge.

Kate Jerkens (01:02:45.671)
How are they going to make up the difference in their revenue loss? Those are jobs in Canada. Those are big jobs in Canada. And taking American spirits off their shelves, I understand the feeling behind it and wanting to do something big and make a point. Our CEO has been on about a million shows talking about this. I'm concerned about friends who, you like you think about in Canada, that's a huge revenue loss. are going to lose jobs over this. You know, it's not a small amount of money. It's a

Jessie Ott (01:03:11.464)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:03:11.889)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (01:03:14.319)
you know, multi-billion dollar industry there and it's all revenue for like for the government. So it's how long can they sustain this is what's going to be interesting. You know, it's a real standoff. It could be dangerous for them.

Julie Milroy (01:03:20.526)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Milroy (01:03:25.39)
Do you the consumer... Yeah, but will the consumer demand shift, right? Will they be drinking more French and Italian wines, you know? And if there's a significant difference, I mean, it's like you're going to drink what's available and what costs less. Like I always think about my husband's from South Africa, so we go every year and...

Jessie Ott (01:03:26.803)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:03:33.147)
Maybe.

Kate Jerkens (01:03:37.286)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:03:52.174)
You can only get South African wine everywhere. And it's like, great. They make couple of good wines. Like I don't want South African wine, you know, but if you, so I drink beer, but if you want like an imported wine, you're paying like ridiculous amount of money. So you're not going to, and it's, you know, it, it has an impact on, um,

Kate Jerkens (01:03:55.111)
Right?

Kate Jerkens (01:04:06.94)
Right.

Julie Milroy (01:04:14.306)
you know, it could change consumer behavior. I'm hoping that this is just a lot of disruption and noise and then we get to a good agreement that everybody agrees on and it's not so disruptive. But it's interesting how it's become such a, it's become so personal.

Jessie Ott (01:04:21.173)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:04:25.735)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:04:31.121)
I just talked to, I was texting with a friend who is French. She lived here for a little while on a work visa, working in the wine industry many moons ago. And we've stayed friends and we've stayed in touch. She moved from Paris to Bordeaux and she was sending me copies of her invoice that she was trying to order. Cause she orders American wine because she, you know, she's like, I live in Bordeaux. Of course I drink Bordeaux, I'm French. But, but.

Kate Jerkens (01:04:33.793)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:04:54.573)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (01:04:57.531)
Right.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:04:59.459)
I want my American wine because she lived here for a year and a half and she loves it. She said all my wines have gone up 20 percent, like just just happens. So and she was like talking to the you know her wine purveyor and she's like, my God, these prices are so high. And he's like, yeah, we had to take an increase and like.

Julie Milroy (01:05:06.7)
All right, yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:05:19.331)
And get ready because it's going to get worse.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:05:21.955)
So she's like, yeah, so I don't know what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna drink my American wine, but it's 20 % is a lot of money when I'm buying a few cases. you know, she's a consumer, she's not in the industry anymore.

Kate Jerkens (01:05:32.997)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:05:37.679)
Yeah, they're already taking increases apparently, so scary.

Jessie Ott (01:05:41.811)
Yeah, well they have, Canada has a new prime minister too, so we'll see what that shift does for for them and the relationships.

Julie Milroy (01:05:49.006)
Yeah, I saw her actually watched her on Bill Maher and she's very pragmatic. I mean, it was was interesting. She spoke specifically about this situation. She's like, Oh, it's fine. Canadians, we're just taking all the American wines off the wine list. I was like, Oh, my God. That was just I mean, it was very

Kate Jerkens (01:05:55.835)
Julie Milroy (01:06:11.758)
to hear a prime minister be able to talk so granular about how these brands actually, being on a wine list is really important. yeah, it'll be very interesting. And I think additionally, with all these imports, like French.

Italian, New Zealand, huge imports into the US. And if those all go up, 200, who's gonna spend money on those wines? Like, I think it's sad to say, but I think this is a huge opportunity for the American wineries to really take advantage and push out there like, you know,

Kate Jerkens (01:06:35.655)
Agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:06:57.347)
Yes, but.

Julie Milroy (01:07:00.78)
Proud to be American, know, sorry you can't get your French and Italian wine, but try this instead. And it could be a big opportunity to kind of revive the American wine industry too.

Kate Jerkens (01:07:09.214)
It's an interesting tape,

Jessie Ott (01:07:11.664)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:07:12.569)
Yes, but there has been a big challenge, which is that, you know, when wine just pre-pandemic kind of wine started to go down and down and down. so wineries were literally not purchasing grapes or ripping up vines and like it was an overproduction. So wine production and plantings has pulled back. So there's not necessarily...

Kate Jerkens (01:07:26.215)
Yes.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:07:42.519)
enough product available to fulfill to, I don't know, I would love to see statistics on that. Like, let's say we could never have European wine again, would we have enough wine produced in this country at this time to cover the wine consumption? Or is then the American wines are going to go up in price because supply and demand and you know, because it's definitely much less production than it used to be. mean,

Jessie Ott (01:07:54.313)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:07:55.015)
that's the best way to get a place in the city. And I think that's the best way to a place in That's the best way to get city.

Julie Milroy (01:08:09.326)
Well, you bring up such a good point because I was reading this recent article that because the wine industry going down and there was an overproduction of Jews a lot, right? But however, what the American wineries import of Jews from like Argentina and Chile, they were importing the...

Caitlyn LuBell (01:08:22.309)
very much.

Julie Milroy (01:08:38.386)
over the surplus that they had because it costs so much less. And obviously the tariffs will change, but if that kind of juice that they can get from Argentina and Chile is not so impacted from the tariffs, we're just going to be drinking American wine that's going to be minimal percent American, but with...

Kate Jerkens (01:08:42.779)
How interesting.

Kate Jerkens (01:09:01.087)
Julie Milroy (01:09:04.652)
you know, South American Jews, which is insane, right? Like, why are we wasting but yet buying because it costs less?

Erica Duecy (01:09:15.333)
I think any potential disruption for just wine in general, whether it's American wine or other types of wine from other countries is going to be a huge problem just because of the, in the United States, the leaky bucket problem for wine, which is wine is bringing new consumers to the category every year, but losing more than those that were brought new, right? So wine is losing consumers.

in this category. And if you're not able to find the wine you're used to drinking or what you like, you're probably going to turn off to, you know, maybe another, possibly another wine product. But the competition is so fierce from RTDs and other parts of this, you know, other types of products, whether they're, you know, spirits products or, you know, beer products, malt based, you know, liquors or

Kate Jerkens (01:09:53.287)
you

Erica Duecy (01:10:14.319)
THC, adaptogen, whatever it is, the competition is so fierce that I think we risk the real opportunity of losing these wine consumers, perhaps more so than other parts of the industry. So like, I see the challenges with tariffs like really being bad for wine overall, because we're just already facing declining, you know, declining consumption numbers.

among drinkers in the United States. it's, think it's really going to be a challenge moving forward if this really does last.

Julie Milroy (01:10:52.13)
Yeah, I think the wine industry definitely needs a lot of help, specifically the American wine industry. But you bring up a great point is RTDs. A wine can be an RTD, right? Why aren't there wine seltzers? I don't want a malt seltzer and I don't want a vodka seltzer, but a nice...

Kate Jerkens (01:10:52.359)
Where?

Jessie Ott (01:11:12.019)
Right. Or where are they in the CBD THC space?

Kate Jerkens (01:11:14.875)
So.

Julie Milroy (01:11:18.134)
Right, or wine with some sparkling water. That's what I usually do. And in South Africa, everybody puts ice in their white wine. So it's not that complicated. think wine just needs to get out of its way and come out the way to be more convenient, more approachable. If you see a bottle, you're like, I don't have glassware. I don't have this. And like I said, they can learn a lot from beer.

Jessie Ott (01:11:20.533)
Okay.

Erica Duecy (01:11:35.185)
Totally. mean, I, yeah. Right.

Julie Milroy (01:11:45.058)
Another project I'm working on is comparing wine to the milk industry, right? And when milk, I mean, continues to have decline, but what they did was they started to diversify and making cheese and getting more into string cheese and this and this, know, wine is an agricultural product. So let's come up with different ways that wine can be enjoyed and, help, you know, move it.

Kate Jerkens (01:11:59.911)
Okay.

Erica Duecy (01:12:07.865)
Yeah, I completely agree with that. think that one of the biggest challenges I see among producers and, you know, I was just giving a keynote presentation at a trade industry wine trade conference in California last week. And one of the questions I kept getting over and over because I'm talking about RTDs and the popularity of single serve formats as being something that younger consumers expect. People just want a single serve format because

Kate Jerkens (01:12:33.627)
Okay.

Erica Duecy (01:12:36.143)
you know, they're not necessarily going to pick up a $30 bottle of wine that they have no idea if they're going to like what's in that bottle. So, you know, I talk about single serve formats, whether they're small bottles or cans or what have you, I don't care what they are, Tetra packs, doesn't matter. The point is it's a single serve format that gets you to try the product to realize, is this, do I like this product? Do I want to buy it again? And am I willing to spend more for that larger format? But you know, question after question that I would get was around,

You know, I'm a wine producer. I am very proud of what goes into the bottle and I am unwilling to put it in cans. I'm not willing to do that. And I'm like, look, some producers are not gonna be willing to do that. But if you look at who is moving the market, the top 15 wine companies, all of their innovation products in wine are either low Alc wines that maybe are also blended with other.

Kate Jerkens (01:13:15.867)
Erica Duecy (01:13:35.949)
ingredients or their RTDs like that vibe twisted wine product that we were just talking about from Gallo that seems so much growth. know, brands I think have and it's it's not always just brands. It's like people are very invested in the traditional appeal of these artisanal products. And I I'm not saying it's good or bad. I think you know, people should be proud of what they're making. But they also

Kate Jerkens (01:13:55.111)
.

Erica Duecy (01:14:04.591)
you know, if they want to increase their share of dollar, then they do need to provide ways for younger consumers, especially to try their products in a single serve format. Because the reality is people aren't looking for 750 mls and they're not willing to spend money on those. I saw that size if they don't know if they're going to like it. So if there hasn't been trial in the market or you're not at the

Kate Jerkens (01:14:26.945)
Right? And there's so many options. Wine is probably one of the most intimate. If you're not a person with any kind of wine background, it's such an intimidating thing to buy.

Erica Duecy (01:14:30.703)
wine store helping them taste it or it's not on a class list at a restaurant, it's very hard to convince many consumers to take a risk on buying a 750 ml.

Jessie Ott (01:14:37.32)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (01:14:44.689)
Thank

Kate Jerkens (01:14:53.287)
And if you go like, I live near this Whole Foods and you look at like, even in like this, if you're wanting to go white wine, there's 30, 40 varietals. it's like, don't, if you don't know wine, where do you start? But the ones that have a small, yeah, right. And then I grew up in Sonoma County, so I have a little more like knowledge, but right. But like it is, it's really confusing for people. And I honestly think that sometimes where people, I think there's just lack of education. People just are like, it's too much.

Julie Milroy (01:14:53.294)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Milroy (01:15:03.0)
Yeah. And you're in California.

Julie Milroy (01:15:08.013)
By default, you have no more knowledge.

Kate Jerkens (01:15:20.123)
Beer seems more straightforward to people sometimes, right? It's just, nevermind, you know, but I think you're so right. you had those smaller splits or something right above it or the cans, and who's the company, it's the Oregon-based winery that has all the cans. They do everything from Underwood, like, and I've tried almost all of their cans, because I think that's a fun way to try their different wines and their sparklings and all that, and I think it's brilliant.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:15:35.697)
Underwood. Yeah. Underwood.

Erica Duecy (01:15:36.291)
Underwood. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:15:47.717)
And it's not like it's not cheap, right? Still like you're still like, okay, this is still quality, but it's a great way to try out their everything that they've got to offer.

Julie Milroy (01:15:47.747)
I think.

Julie Milroy (01:15:52.472)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Milroy (01:15:56.034)
Yeah, I think they thought.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:15:56.209)
I think that it's important to have both though, because like me, I'm a wine girl. And when I go to a shop, I want to get a funky white Italian varietal and I want a beautiful bottle of wine and I am not, and I'm not drinking wine in a can necessarily. I want to be

Julie Milroy (01:15:59.212)
You did, yeah, that's what, right.

Kate Jerkens (01:15:59.215)
Yeah, sure.

Kate Jerkens (01:16:05.891)
Yeah. And you're comfortable with it.

with a straw

Julie Milroy (01:16:13.314)
You pour it into a glass.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:16:17.073)
old school, I love my wine, you know, I think there's room for both. And I think, you know, that definitely it is important to have those alternate options, especially for the newer generation. I mean, winemakers are very often like a chef, right? And so you don't want to take the chef and throw it in McDonald's, right? Like, totally. But like there, there is still a time and a place and there are still

Erica Duecy (01:16:21.361)
for sure. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:16:34.658)
which is why they're not responsible for marketing.

Erica Duecy (01:16:37.745)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:16:43.099)
consumers that are older generations or just more refined palates or whatever that want a nice bottle of wine and and you know, I don't know.

Kate Jerkens (01:16:47.887)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:16:49.962)
Yeah.

Well, Erica, you had the gentleman from Stella Rosa on, and I thought that was really interesting because they do something like 3,000 tastings a year. And what...

Erica Duecy (01:16:57.541)
Mm-hmm.

Erica Duecy (01:17:04.441)
Yeah, mean, Stella Rose is a really interesting brand because they over index both for multicultural consumers and for younger generations. So, you know, if you're not familiar with them, they're like a semi sparkling, semi sweet, like 5 % Moscato based wines that have natural flavors. It's not actually even natural flavors added to them. It's natural fruit distillates.

Kate Jerkens (01:17:06.73)
Erica Duecy (01:17:29.841)
And in the episode, the business of drinks episode, we talk about like the process of making those distillates. And this is actually a very high quality product that sells for around $15. If you hear like the labor intensiveness that goes into it, it's pretty surprising. It's really an amazing product. you know, I talk, I use them often as an example of a company that brings more people to wine than almost any other wine company.

Jessie Ott (01:17:37.384)
Yeah, it is.

Erica Duecy (01:17:55.633)
because they're offering these products that are an easy on-ramp. Like one of the challenges with wine, it's a total gateway wine. One of the challenges with wine is that like you look at every other CPG category, right? Any other drinks category. And it says what it is on the label. It says it's strawberry dragon fruit, or it says that it's, you know, margarita flavor. Like everyone knows what that is, but you get to wine and people don't know what it is. They just don't know what it is.

Kate Jerkens (01:18:00.485)
It's a gateway wine.

Jessie Ott (01:18:02.077)
It's a gateway line.

Kate Jerkens (01:18:15.303)
Okay.

Julie Milroy (01:18:21.902)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Perfect. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:18:22.471)
Grape! what?

Erica Duecy (01:18:23.665)
And so, yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So you see like a Stella Rosa, you know, black cherry and you're like, oh, black cherry. This is what it will taste like. And you're, you know, then willing to spend that $15 because you have a pretty good idea of what's going to be in that 750 ML. And they've also moved into, you know, non-alc and single serve formats and all of that. But I think, you know, any of these brands that are, you know, looking to

Jessie Ott (01:18:24.637)
or all the things they're putting in there too.

Kate Jerkens (01:18:28.391)
Okay.

Kate Jerkens (01:18:34.599)
Hmm.

Erica Duecy (01:18:53.089)
bring new people to wine, they do need to be open to various formats because I think that's really the challenge. Yes, there's always going to be connoisseur level products available in 750 mls, but it's just a harder sell for people who aren't as familiar with the category.

Jessie Ott (01:19:09.119)
Yeah, but I also thought there's a couple of things he mentioned that was interesting and not every portfolio can do that because they have the range, but how they work with their distributor networks to teach them to as this, as you say, gateway brand, but they, they try to, as they age through, you know, life, they're trying to teach them about these other varietals and to get them to try them and see if they like them and progress through the other,

Kate Jerkens (01:19:09.442)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:19:33.023)
Hmm.

Jessie Ott (01:19:37.907)
brands that they own and I thought that was really fascinating. But I also thought it was interesting that when it comes to flavors, they go to beaches in Italy and they look at what kids are drinking on the beach, not kids, but younger adults. Like that's how they came up with that hot mango or that spicy mango flavor or something like that. Spicy chili. That was just like, are you serious? That is, that's wild.

Erica Duecy (01:19:41.21)
Yeah, yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:19:54.831)
Wow.

Erica Duecy (01:19:58.513)
Yeah, spicy chili, spicy pineapple chili. Yeah, yeah. Right, he saw people drinking spicy margaritas on the beach in Italy. And he was like, I feel like this is coming down the road. they, and then that skew, that new skew for them, which they launched in 2023 was the number one top selling product, new wine skew in America. According to Nielsen data. Yeah. I mean, his hunch was right.

Kate Jerkens (01:20:22.885)
That's wild! Holy cow!

Caitlyn LuBell (01:20:23.643)
Amazing.

Jessie Ott (01:20:24.404)
Wild.

Erica Duecy (01:20:27.345)
But you know what what that product also does is it capitalizes on how popular cocktails are you know because this is like a spicy pineapple wine is like not too far from a spicy, know pineapple margarita something that you see it, know any like any of these sort of you know casual restaurants like the You know kind of a Mexican chain restaurant

Kate Jerkens (01:20:36.305)
Sure.

Erica Duecy (01:20:52.785)
So it's like a very easy thing for people to understand. And I think that's, you know, that's kind of their brilliance is like, you know, I always say like, Hey, it's like you start with one of these wines. It's a Stella Rosa, you know, a flavor that maybe you are totally familiar with. You're excited about maybe it's like a green apple flavor or whatever. And then you can, but once you get people to say like, I am a wine drinker, I drink wine.

you can move them along the journey, right? Because then where do you go from that? Maybe you go to a vino verde, maybe you go to a Sauvignon Blanc or like one of these kind of easier Riesling. Riesling's a perfect example. That's like a great gateway wine for a lot of people because it has that sweetness and it's kind of familiar flavors. Like you got the apricots and apples and all those kind of flavors in there that people can like readily identify with and are not hard to like.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:21:21.146)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:21:27.131)
I did Rieslings. I went to Rieslings. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:21:37.863)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Milroy (01:21:45.89)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (01:21:46.501)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:21:47.045)
You're both right. It's really important to get that new consumer right. And I know we drank wine coolers when I was a kid and then then white Zinfandel, Bartleson James Bartleson James, I'm coolers. And then and then we got into white Zinfandel and then Riesling and then got into wine. So I definitely agree that that wine needs to be more innovative and do more things. I wasn't disagreeing with that.

Kate Jerkens (01:21:55.622)
Boons? Okay.

Julie Milroy (01:21:57.208)
the students.

Jessie Ott (01:21:57.321)
Hehehehehe

Caitlyn LuBell (01:22:16.112)
at all, but I do still want to still see the fancy, you know, funky varietals in the wine shops. you know, I think there's and yeah, and and Reboli is great because they have they they have cellarosa, but then they have their boutique family owned wines. And so they can kind of capture all of it so that they're a great company because of that, right, because they do.

Kate Jerkens (01:22:23.601)
Yeah. For sure.

Erica Duecy (01:22:23.769)
Yeah, I do too. For my own collection, I do too.

Julie Milroy (01:22:28.654)
I mean, I-

Jessie Ott (01:22:35.731)
Yep.

Erica Duecy (01:22:41.914)
Yes. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:22:42.029)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:22:42.235)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:22:42.811)
They get them young and they keep them as they...

Julie Milroy (01:22:44.652)
Yeah, and then, and guess what pays the bills for all the nice wines is Stella Rose, right? So I think wine companies, if they're really trying to grow and expand, you know, mean, unless you're these like generational wineries from Italy, because you do the math, you're like, there's no way they could even make money, you know, based on their production. And that's fine wine. Like you don't get into fine wine because you want to make a lot of money. It's usually because you're kind of generational and you've got into it.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:22:48.241)
Exactly. Of course.

Kate Jerkens (01:22:48.785)
part.

Erica Duecy (01:22:48.815)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Julie Milroy (01:23:14.338)
But if you want to do wine as a business, I think this is the time to be innovative. mean, wine has been in can, right? But I think it was premature, right? Like there were a lot of wineries that didn't can and then they stopped because it's sometimes you've got to repeat things because the time just wasn't there. And I feel like the time is now and a lot of wineries for them to put stuff in and a can is not a huge investment. And it's actually, you know,

Number one, convenience, which is super important. Packaging, they can get super creative, right? Like you mentioned Poppi and whatever pops and exciting stuff. Flavor is huge, right? Like there's no reason why you can't have like a sweet rosé and say, tastes like strawberry liquid, you know? I mean, those are all real things. And I think that that could really attract the consumer. And then

introduce the other wines, you know, that you're more proud of. know, like Jessie, you mentioned, it's like you take your consumers on a journey so that there's always something else for them. But why not, you know, start it off? I mean, if you've got Minute Maid now, and if they're still in those little foil juice packs, I mean, that's... They're gonna have to speed it up.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:24:19.792)
Yep.

Jessie Ott (01:24:28.597)
you

Caitlyn LuBell (01:24:34.651)
really have to look this up because you guys are blowing my mind with this. I did not hear about this.

Erica Duecy (01:24:37.857)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Julie Milroy (01:24:38.124)
because if you get that gold and yeah, if you find that in the, you know, I wouldn't be, I'd be like, we're going out on the boat. Let me grab, you know, box of that. But,

Caitlyn LuBell (01:24:48.731)
throw it in the cooler with your kids in the boat and like, you know, confuse the minute maids like

Julie Milroy (01:24:53.134)
Yeah, yeah, you-

Kate Jerkens (01:24:53.478)
We've got, yeah.

Yeah, even when White Claw came out, I remember at parties, we all had to be really careful when like those were out with the kids because they look very appealing. All those cans are, to be super careful with all that stuff for sure. You're right. Anything that looks like a Capri Sun is definitely be careful with.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:04.048)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:25:07.308)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:09.024)
my gosh.

Julie Milroy (01:25:13.356)
Yeah, you wonder why the kids have been like passed out for hours and they're not moving.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:15.521)
gosh.

Erica Duecy (01:25:16.774)
Ha

Kate Jerkens (01:25:18.171)
They're so tolerable! Oh wow, those are...

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:22.267)
So this is for sale, huh? It's made.

Julie Milroy (01:25:25.203)
they're in, there's camp.

Kate Jerkens (01:25:26.489)
Hey, that's to me that's a little that's too close to home for me personally, but

Julie Milroy (01:25:30.284)
That is so weird.

Jessie Ott (01:25:30.865)
Yeah, because they make the minute made the focal point.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:35.796)
Ow.

Kate Jerkens (01:25:37.519)
If you pull up a bottle of Minute Maid or a carton of Minute Maid, can see, that's pretty interesting to me.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:45.644)
It's like Tide Pods. Be careful.

Julie Milroy (01:25:48.12)
Who owns Minute Me? Do we know? Coca-Cola.

Kate Jerkens (01:25:49.871)
Alright.

Kate Jerkens (01:25:53.401)
there you go. See what I mean? Like, I just think because they do the bottles like that now, I know there's a difference, but it's very similar.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:25:55.185)
Jessie Ott (01:26:02.015)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:26:02.38)
They probably got away with it by putting it in a wine bottle. That's probably what they're saying that it's like, you would know because it's in a wine bottle. interesting.

Kate Jerkens (01:26:06.817)
huh.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:26:15.301)
No comment.

Jessie Ott (01:26:15.677)
I haven't seen this too.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:26:18.289)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (01:26:21.033)
Lime margarita?

Kate Jerkens (01:26:21.573)
If you're a minute made house and you've got those bottles in your refrigerator and you're hosting a party and then those are also out on the counter, could be confusing for a child, you know?

Jessie Ott (01:26:30.867)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:26:33.935)
or an adult that's not paying attention is like, jeez, cool, you know?

Jessie Ott (01:26:38.55)
I'm not seeing too much of the cans.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:26:43.697)
Can I ask a touchy subject? I did read yesterday about aluminum, that there's gonna be tariffs on aluminum. So if that happens, what is that gonna do to all this RTD and beer and alternate formats and things like that? mean, do you guys think that tetra, I mean, I think tetrapox are definitely should be hotter than they are. I think that potentially they're maybe better for the earth, but curious on.

your guys opinion, was like, well, aluminum, that's all of our new hot categories, right?

Kate Jerkens (01:27:19.719)
It sure is. Yeah, it's I mean, it's gonna it really it's

Jessie Ott (01:27:22.099)
Yeah, this is high alcohol too.

Erica Duecy (01:27:23.727)
Yeah, and for beer, I mean, that's gonna be a huge impact.

Jessie Ott (01:27:27.632)
This is 13.9 %

Kate Jerkens (01:27:28.647)
You're used to seeing like 5 % on any of these spiked RTDs. That's really high.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:27:28.741)
Beard,

Julie Milroy (01:27:35.32)
but I think they're putting wine, okay, they have wine and what? Like, is there wine?

Jessie Ott (01:27:35.403)
they're using orange wine.

Erica Duecy (01:27:39.28)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:27:40.145)
That one's higher than, I guess it's a wine cocktail. Okay, that's almost even a little higher than most. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:27:47.404)
Most wine, yeah.

Erica Duecy (01:27:48.005)
Definitely higher than the, the seltzer. So I think like the seltzer market is kind of like leveling out a little bit and where the growth opportunity is, in the higher alcohol categories right now. Cause I think it's like, like, I think there's a pro, I mean, I would guess that their idea was like, okay, we're starting to see the like seltzer, these lower alcohol products kind of like level out from a growth perspective. So like that market saturated, where's the opportunity it's in the higher Alc.

Kate Jerkens (01:27:52.133)
Yeah, seltzers are like five.

Erica Duecy (01:28:18.042)
cocktails.

Kate Jerkens (01:28:18.855)
Yeah, if you scroll, like if you see there was like a Minute Maid a regular minute made can, like look at if you scroll down a little bit, there's like the minute made apple juice and then look at those two cans, like you've got the minute made apple juice and then the spikes. Like, first of all, child, my eight year old and his vocabulary, the term spike means nothing.

Jessie Ott (01:28:37.909)
All they're not gonna see this 21 plus over here.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:28:38.181)
Right.

Kate Jerkens (01:28:41.177)
and you can barely read it.

Jessie Ott (01:28:42.983)
Yeah, yeah that would be very dangerous for a child.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:28:46.747)
Oof.

Kate Jerkens (01:28:47.707)
I don't think, yeah, 13.9, that's very different than having a sip of your dad's beer.

Jessie Ott (01:28:52.827)
Yeah, why did they think they needed to do that? Because grocery stores in some states need to be a lot lower than that. think it's under 8 % or under 6%.

Kate Jerkens (01:29:02.331)
It's a good call actually too. You're right. It's not going to be to be sold everywhere.

Jessie Ott (01:29:05.503)
They didn't know what they were doing, clearly.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:29:06.523)
Well, maybe that's why. No, maybe they did that intentionally so that it wouldn't be in the grocery stores. So it would only be in the liquor stores or whatever. So maybe that was the intent of it to not get it.

Jessie Ott (01:29:10.888)
Maybe.

Jessie Ott (01:29:16.147)
Yeah, maybe they're not.

Kate Jerkens (01:29:16.421)
Yeah, except for California. They figure all the California kids are just smoking weed now anyways, I bet.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:29:24.058)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:29:24.895)
They have a vodka lemonade, 5%.

Erica Duecy (01:29:28.645)
Well, they've got, yeah, see there's like the lower, they've got the lower Alc too. I haven't seen this one.

Julie Milroy (01:29:36.792)
Hmm.

Erica Duecy (01:29:37.103)
And this one is going on the, did you see it said smooth, no fizz? yeah, so that's the, I think the fizz, the fizz, the 5 % fizz market is saturated.

Jessie Ott (01:29:42.303)
Yep.

Julie Milroy (01:29:44.504)
Bye.

Kate Jerkens (01:29:51.068)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:29:52.895)
That's nuts. Well, you know, it'll be interesting. It's interesting that Mint Maid and Crystal Light are doing this much before the wine industry is doing it. They're kind of shooting themselves in the foot a little bit, you know? They need to get ahead of it, like you guys said, for sure. Well, we're kind of at a two o'clock. Does anyone have a hard stop that they need to jump off?

Kate Jerkens (01:30:14.812)
Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:30:23.79)
I'm going to. I'm going to need to jump off.

Jessie Ott (01:30:24.847)
Okay, I just okay well I was just gonna say if anybody had anything that they wanted to talk about trends or anything like that if not no biggie I think we talked about a lot of really great topics and and covered them all.

Erica Duecy (01:30:26.417)
Yeah, I'm have to hop off here in a second.

Kate Jerkens (01:30:26.449)
I need to get on the road for a meeting.

Kate Jerkens (01:30:43.003)
I think when we get back together, we're going to see a lot have a lot more like, we'll have some insights on tariffs, right? Everything happening with the EU, Canada, Mexico, because it'll be really interesting to see and how many times they go on and off. Keeping this on their toes. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:30:50.363)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:30:58.281)
Yep, whiplash.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:31:00.219)
gosh, keeping me up at night. That's for sure. My poor clients don't know what to do. They're like, should we hire? Should we not hire? Should we hire? Should we not hire? Like they don't know what to do right now. It's so sad. I mean, we're busier than ever, like I said. So, you know, people are still hiring, but I think we had somebody fly out for a final. Everything was great. Totally loved them. was a whiskey too. yep, we're on a hiring freeze. We can't hire.

Kate Jerkens (01:31:10.915)
Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Duecy (01:31:11.664)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:31:28.805)
Hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:31:30.127)
And I'm like, you flew the guy out there. Everyone loves them. And that was an American whiskey, by the way. So definitely not sure what that was like about, but I think it's just the looming fear that's going on. So that even American products, they're like not sure what to do right now. So.

Kate Jerkens (01:31:33.703)
That's a big expense to do that.

Erica Duecy (01:31:49.177)
Yeah, definitely. mean, all the marketing budgets of friends at almost every wine spirits company is like, are on hold until further notice.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:31:58.251)
yeah. And domestic brands are cutting, I mean, twice a week, I'm hearing of, you know, mass layoffs and it's domestic, not just international. it's a

Kate Jerkens (01:31:58.544)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:32:06.911)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:32:09.147)
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:32:10.197)
It's been like six months of layoffs, hasn't it?

Caitlyn LuBell (01:32:13.443)
It is twice, two times a week, if not more, it's minimum of a dozen people. It's huge companies that we're getting calls about.

Jessie Ott (01:32:21.909)
But on LinkedIn, every time I open up LinkedIn, there's three or four people that got new jobs. So there are jobs, which is a good thing.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:32:27.419)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (01:32:28.698)
Agreed. There are. And you guys, this is not for forever either. Our CEO did this op-ed for Spirits Business, Fawn Weaver. At the end of the day, if you look at the graphs and everything too, we just grew so much during COVID, right? And we could not continue that. We didn't give the guidance to investors, if you're a big company, about growth not being able to be sustainable at that level.

Julie Milroy (01:32:31.042)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:32:31.247)
We s- we s-

Jessie Ott (01:32:33.757)
Yeah, it's not forever.

Jessie Ott (01:32:44.35)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:32:54.577)
We now have distributors who've been forced into buying so much product the last two years that it's all sitting on their, you know, it's all sitting on their floors and there's a little bit of, you know, people nervous about the, there's just all these other factors. But the reality is, like, we're stabilizing. People are still drinking. You know, there's a lot that like, yes, Non-Alc is growing and everything, but there's also, mean, people are, like people are still drinking. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:33:15.397)
People are still drinking.

Kate Jerkens (01:33:18.247)
But it does, I think it's one of those pieces right now where it feels like, I always think about like dumb and dumber, like our pets' are falling off. Like everything's happening at all at once. know, I don't know if you guys, sorry. Really mature way, our pets' heads are, you know. But it's not all doom and gloom. And I think we just have to buckle up this year and let some stabilization. And yeah, we probably all overspent thinking we were gonna continue to hit the, you know, but we've just got it like buckled out, you know, and get creative. And, you know.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:33:27.557)
Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

Erica Duecy (01:33:30.053)
I mean, yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:33:47.455)
Focus on the right accounts.

Erica Duecy (01:33:49.265)
Right. And I think, you know, I think it's important to remember, you know, last year's alcohol sales were about $113 billion, according to Nielsen. So like that is not going anywhere. And I've even had, I've even had, you know, it's not a small amount. And I've even had companies say like, should we like throw in the towel on Alc and like do non Alc or how important is it to add non Alc?

Kate Jerkens (01:33:50.287)
Exactly.

Kate Jerkens (01:34:01.945)
It's not a small amount of money.

Jessie Ott (01:34:04.06)
Hehehehehe

Erica Duecy (01:34:13.265)
You know that the value of the NA market is just a tiny fraction of the size of the alcohol market. It's just right now about one to $2 billion and forecast to go up to about $5 billion and you know by 2028. like, yes, it's growing, but that's not going to take over or take the share away from dollars any market way in the foreseeable future. So $113 billion is a huge.

chunk that is probably a fairly resilient number.

Kate Jerkens (01:34:43.783)
There is.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:34:47.099)
We're probably signing three new clients a week, like literally signing up. That means they're calling us. They need to hire, they need our help and we're signing them. And it's three a week at a minimum. I mean, it's nonstop. So innovative ways, fractional sales, but we'll take it. We'll take it.

Kate Jerkens (01:34:56.945)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:34:59.103)
So innovation.

Erica Duecy (01:35:01.529)
Yeah, innovation.

Jessie Ott (01:35:03.861)
Innovation versus the bigger companies. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:35:07.624)
But that's the way to do it and I mean our next conversation should be just how does distribution change because all of these companies that are starting They're all hungry enough. They can all go sell on their own but they're all hamstrung by a pretty antiquated three and four tier system and time so I Tell you I think we could all sell the heck out of it without

Julie Milroy (01:35:07.714)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:35:13.765)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:35:21.797)
Yep. Yeah. The brand called, I'm going to send you the brand. Yeah. I'm going to send you the brand. I'll send you guys the brand cultivator program just so you could see it if you haven't seen it, cause it's on fire and that it's helping. And we're getting big brands calling us for it now as added layer sales feet on the street. So it's not just like scrappy startups. It's big brands that we all know are like, yeah, we'll take some fractional sales, some brand cultivators for

Kate Jerkens (01:35:31.175)
I'd love to see it. Yeah.

Julie Milroy (01:35:46.487)
Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:35:51.057)
and add on to our primary market or for secondary market or whatever. I'm telling you. Yeah, it's working well. So, well, thanks ladies. Definitely, definitely always great to see all of you guys. I'm glad you're all keeping your chin above water. Who's going to BCB? Anybody? No? No, I'll be flying solo there. Jessie, you're not gonna come?

Kate Jerkens (01:35:54.769)
Caitlyn, hook me, yeah, hit me up, please. I'm super interested in this, yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:36:01.959)
Yes.

Erica Duecy (01:36:02.033)
Thank you.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:02.247)
I'm

Kate Jerkens (01:36:06.716)
fun.

Julie Milroy (01:36:12.216)
Mm-mm.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:14.929)
Sorry.

Jessie Ott (01:36:16.117)
I'm indecisive.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:36:18.757)
All right, we'll talk about it.

Jessie Ott (01:36:19.733)
I think I'm gonna have... 2026, I will come out of my cave with Grogu, me and Grogu over here. Yeah, no, thank you all.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:20.741)
know, but maybe she can be talked into it.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:36:26.649)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:29.154)
Hahaha!

Julie Milroy (01:36:32.152)
Thank you, Jessie, for having us on. It was good chatting with all of you. We'll stay connected. And yeah, and Kailin, I'd love to learn more about.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:36:33.689)
Yeah, thank you, Jessie.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:33.701)
Yes, thanks for getting us together.

Erica Duecy (01:36:33.713)
All right, thank you.

Jessie Ott (01:36:36.959)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:36:41.649)
I know I've been meaning to email you and connect with you because we have to talk and like see how we can help each other as well. So I'm always up for that. Jessie, we have to leave this on right until we finish buffering.

Julie Milroy (01:36:44.654)
I

Yes, yes.

Jessie Ott (01:36:53.149)
Yeah, I'm gonna say goodbye and I'm gonna wave my fang and I will stop recording.

Julie Milroy (01:36:55.83)
Okay.

Kate Jerkens (01:36:56.241)
Bye!

Erica Duecy (01:36:58.117)
Bye.

Caitlyn LuBell (01:37:00.015)
Okay.

Julie Milroy (01:37:00.106)
Okay.