Beverage Industry Review Q2/H1 with Industry Executives

This week 📢I talk🎙️with Kate Jerkens at Uncle Nearest, Ella Parlor with EP Consulting and Caitlyn LuBell at BoozeBiz and we discuss the beverage industry changes and updates in 2026. 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂 😁

👀📹 Watch here: 👉👉 YouTube🚀✨🍹

CBS Sunday Morning 6 min Video    Presentation Presented

Is beverage alcohol really declining—or are consumers simply drinking differently?

In this Thirsty Thursdays @3PM EST industry discussion, Jessie Ott sits down with Kate Jerkens, Caitlyn LuBell and Ella Parlor to unpack the shifts reshaping beverage alcohol—from the RNDC/Reyes distribution shakeup to RTDs, non-alcoholic beverages, premiumization, consumer spending, data and AI. 

🔥 Key Takeaways:

📦 Distribution is changing: What the RNDC/Reyes transition could mean for suppliers, sales teams and brands.

🍹 RTDs & NA keep reshaping the market: Traditional beverage categories are becoming increasingly blurred.

💸 Consumers are changing occasions: $20+ cocktails and affordability pressures may mean drinking at home or drinking less often—not necessarily abandoning alcohol.

🥃 Premium still matters: Consumers may buy less while trading up when the occasion is worth it.

⚽ Experiences drive spending: The World Cup discussion shows consumers will still spend when the experience matters.

📊 We may have a data problem: Traditional datasets don't always capture independent retail, on-premise or emerging categories.

🤖 AI could transform beverage sales: Imagine turning photos of back bars and menus into actionable inventory and sales intelligence.

The big question: Are consumers drinking less—or are they simply drinking differently?

🎧 Listen now and join the conversation!

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

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Transcript

Jessie Ott (00:57)
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Thursday Thursdays. My name is Jessie Ott, and we have a little bit of a team shuffle here. Erica Ducey has decided to step back for now and we have recruited this amazing replacement. Her name is Ella Parlor. I will let you kind of talk about yourself when we when when you introduce yourself. But we're really excited to have Ella on our on our team here. We have so much fun every time we get together. the industry is just kind of crazy.

right now and I I've got some pretty cool slides. I can't wait to show you guys on some of that data reflected in actual numbers. So pretty excited to to have you here, Ella, and let's get started. Caitlin, you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself?

Caitlyn LuBell (01:37)
Yeah, I'm Caitlin Lubell and a founder of Boozeb and Chief Connection Officer of Booze Biz. We're a recruiting agency specifically for the beverage industry, be all beverage and beverage adjacent across the US. And we're actually getting into Canada and UK as we speak. So very exciting stuff.

Jessie Ott (01:57)
Very exciting.

Kate.

Kate Jerkens (01:58)
Hi y'all, Kate Jerkins. I'm Chief Business Officer for Uncle Nearis. I was a founding executive for the brand and prior to that spent over fifteen years in the hospitality industry in

Ella Parlor (02:08)
Hmm.

Kate Jerkens (02:08)
various sales and leadership roles in boutique and branded hotels throughout the country.

Ella Parlor (02:15)
Hi everyone. I didn't know I was replacing Erica. I thought she was gonna be here with us now. I feel guilty.

Jessie Ott (02:18)
No no no no. Well

we we just I think the dynamic of four is better than three and we we really wanted another voice from a different sector of the industry and you fit that bill perfectly and and so we just we were all really excited that you were gonna join us 'cause you have such great

Caitlyn LuBell (02:36)
Bien, gracias.

Jessie Ott (02:36)
insight and and really an interesting background. so

Ella Parlor (02:39)
Yeah,

Kate Jerkens (02:40)
Absolutely.

Ella Parlor (02:40)
it's it's convoluted

to say the least. I've been in the industry almost twenty years. I'm an independent beverage consultant. I work on the commercial operation side for various organizations, specifically in beverage. I say adult beverage because I did for the first time take on non alcoholic clients this year. first time working in non alc since Red Bull back in the two thousands. So it's really exciting to to be on the non-alc side of the business again.

But of course I say adult beverages now, so I'm trying to make that a thing. Adult beverage.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:10)
That's good.

I like that. We should

Jessie Ott (03:11)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:12)
use that too. We just say all beverage all day, but I like the adult beverage. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (03:15)
Yeah, adult beverage makes sense, yeah.

Ella Parlor (03:17)
I'm not selling I'm not

Jessie Ott (03:17)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (03:18)
selling Dasani sippy cups yet. Okay. I'm not at that level of coverage. No. Absolutely. This t-shirt is great.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:20)
Yeah. Although we would definitely recruit for that. So we my gosh.

Ella Parlor (03:26)
but I I'm also the best selling author behind High Tolerance, which is the number one alcohol marketing book in the industry.

Kate Jerkens (03:32)
Ooh.

Caitlyn LuBell (03:32)
Yes.

Jessie Ott (03:32)
that's

awesome. Well

Caitlyn LuBell (03:34)
It's great fun.

Jessie Ott (03:35)
you'll you'll definitely have to come on the podcast sometime and we'll talk about it.

Ella Parlor (03:38)
thank you. I'd love to. I can't wait to get into this today.

Jessie Ott (03:41)
Yeah, likewise. So Ella, what I normally do and I didn't get a chance to get it to I try to send it a little early just to g so you can kinda digest it a little bit, is I spend the first five to ten minutes or so. I'll probably I'll make it shorter since we're kind of a little delayed here. On just some economic indicators and just I have just some fun slides that I start with, start then we jump into, you know, the business of the bit our

business.

kind of looking at Q two in in the first half and kind of comparing and contrasting those metrics. So I'll go ahead and and share my

Computer screen here.

Caitlyn LuBell (04:22)
Yeah, right. It's all my

Ella Parlor (04:18)
fully expecting good news.

Kate Jerkens (04:21)
I love that. I love that attitude.

Jessie Ott (04:22)
It's

Ella Parlor (04:24)
I'm very serious.

Jessie Ott (04:25)
Up the zone up

Ella Parlor (04:26)
I come with

good news if not.

Jessie Ott (04:29)
Good. So I love Visual Capitalists. It always tells a a really fun, unique story. And I really thought this was interesting given the whole World Cup, I thought it was we're down fourteen percent with tourism since twenty nineteen and and that they they're comparing that to twenty twenty five. And I thought, could there be,

World Cup implications and 'cause everybody had such a great time, there's a lot of different countries here and whatnot, but

Only like a three point two percent lift, and we're still under the seventy-nine million from twenty nineteen. So we got a long way to go. I just thought that was kind of interesting. This is America's largest private companies, and yes, Reyes and Southern are both in the top 15, actually top 10, and more than half of the top 15 are in food, grocery, or beverage related industries, which is very, very powerful.

if you think about you know the power of small businesses and family owned businesses and and business in general. now that the RNDC acquisitions are completed right in May, what what will that look like for Reyes for 2026 and 2027? So you can see here this is Reyes at 44 billion and this is 2025 numbers and this is

Southern at twenty five. So Reyes in twenty twenty five was almost double Southern.

Caitlyn LuBell (05:53)
My God.

That's crazy.

Kate Jerkens (05:56)
But I think we

talked about the last time. I mean, I think Reyes is is so brilliant because they're so diverse, right? And the contracts that they have are incredible in and not all adult dev. So when we talk about right, like their

Jessie Ott (06:08)
Right. So smart.

Caitlyn LuBell (06:09)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (06:11)
contracts with Coke and all these fast food chains. I think we talked about like they do they do it like they fulfill like the Coke products for like McDonald's and Chick-fil-A. I mean, that's just so smart. And I think

that diversity is like is their key, but I you're seeing it right now, Southern Glazers is is really starting to diversify more, drive drive more into beer right now. I think it'll be interesting to see what else that they do. They underst they're understanding that the diversity playbook is what makes sense, quite frankly.

Jessie Ott (06:41)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (06:41)
Well, August

third, so yesterday, all the RNDC in New York moved over. Well, the ones that they kept moved over to Manhattan Beer and they went live

Kate Jerkens (06:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (06:53)
yesterday. So and it's interesting, and I've recently just heard that Southern's changing their name to

Southern Glazier Beverage Company, I believe it is. so they're dropping wine and spirits. So it's you know, that's a

That's pretty big news if you think about like,

Kate Jerkens (07:08)
Make sense.

Caitlyn LuBell (07:10)
you know, the number one spine and spirits distributor

Jessie Ott (07:11)
Right.

Caitlyn LuBell (07:12)
in the US dropping wine and spirits words.

it was

Kate Jerkens (07:15)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (07:15)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (07:16)
pretty shocking to hear, to be honest.

Jessie Ott (07:19)
Right.

Yep. And to think this big giant that's been building itself over these, you know, past decades being so small compared to Reyes, which is just literally picked up, you know, ten or twelve markets or whatever it is. And it's just it's just such a interesting time. so glad I'm I'm able to get on a podcast and talk to some amazing people about it because it's just it's just insane. It was just the same old grind for so long and then and then it wasn't

You know? And now it's just

Kate Jerkens (07:50)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (07:50)
exp exploding. So yeah, down here, Catherine, to your point, Reyes Holdings includes all of its business, including what you were saying, McDonald's supply chain, Martin Brower, the Coca-Cola balling, and the beverage group. So it's not just you're not really

Caitlyn LuBell (08:06)
Well.

Jessie Ott (08:07)
comparing apples to apples there because they have so many other different business streams. but when you look

Kate Jerkens (08:14)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (08:15)
at the acquisition costs of

Reyes from RNDC, they're estimating about another five to six billion in revenue, and that's that's really low because of lost customers, everybody's exiting, mass exodus, all the all the different things, all the accounting things, all all the things. So it's I think it's very low. So they could easily jump to five above H E B and then twenty twenty seven at when they have a full year of revenue could could could top

or

You know, be equal to Mars at fifty five billion dollars.

Kate Jerkens (08:50)
But are you saying

with them going back I mean the the business is lost, right? So are you saying going back and trying to reclaim some of the these larger customers that left RNDC?

Jessie Ott (09:00)
Yeah, the the addition of the seven months that they're the business that they're actually gonna be able to keep is only five or six billion, right? Because

Kate Jerkens (09:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (09:08)
of so much lost business. And so,

Kate Jerkens (09:11)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (09:12)
I think it's there's also like, you know, I tried to help a client go into the state of Pennsylvania and he said, Well, we're in limbo right now because

technically now we're with Reyes, but we can't do anything because we don't really know what our contract is gonna look like, if they're gonna honor certain things or not. And so, you know, they're stuck with Reyes in a sense. I mean, not that they don't want to be with them. I'm just saying like there's a lot of business that are where people are just kind of stuck there. So, you know, I

Kate Jerkens (09:42)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (09:44)
don't think I don't think that's five to six billion is a lot to estimate. I think it's kind of low, honestly. But if you capture that whole full

sales cycle, you know, in twenty twenty seven, I think I think we're gonna see some interesting things 'cause they'll be able to rebuild that those channels when they get set up and get things going, they get their team set up. I'm sure they'll be able to compete again, you know, or or build that

Kate Jerkens (10:07)
Well yeah, I mean 'cause yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (10:07)
Well that's

Jessie Ott (10:09)
up.

Kate Jerkens (10:09)
I mean they have like the big brands in California, right? So as long as they as long as they perform well for those big brands, that'll bode well for them in these other markets that le where these brands left RNDC. So it could be interesting.

Jessie Ott (10:20)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (10:22)
I also really

Jessie Ott (10:22)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (10:22)
want to call out as the Texan on the call, HEB being the top.

Caitlyn LuBell (10:25)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (10:25)
Please do.

Ella Parlor (10:27)
Being in the top is really fascinating to me because we saw so much talk about Safeway and Kroger. So much Safeway Kroger,

Safeway Kroger. So when we talk about the consolidation and redistribution of business, I think seeing HEB top of this list is really important because that is a regional chain for anyone who's not aware, for your listeners. and I think for me it was very humbling moving from California, where I was all Albertson Safeway to Texas. I had never

I being Spirits background, I'd never heard of H E B when I got to Texas.

Caitlyn LuBell (11:00)
Mm-hmm.

Ella Parlor (11:00)
And H E B was not in North Texas when I moved here five years ago. So understanding that the exponential growth that H E B has had, knowing that they're a regional chain on the top private company.

Kate Jerkens (11:11)
That's wild.

Jessie Ott (11:11)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (11:13)
is it's

Jessie Ott (11:13)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (11:13)
just really, it's really, really exciting to see more small regional businesses get some play and have some competitive set. And for anyone who doesn't know, HEB sells more wine than Costco in Texas. they are the number one

Kate Jerkens (11:26)
No kidding.

Caitlyn LuBell (11:26)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (11:28)
retailer by far. Yeah. So it's wild for me to see because I hadn't even heard of them till I moved here, and then they really

eat my lunch now.

Jessie Ott (11:37)
Yeah.

And they're a big player.

Caitlyn LuBell (11:39)
There's also another,

there's another piece of the puzzle, which is that a lot of I'm just gonna throw a teaser out there. We're not gonna talk about it, but a lot of a lot of accounts don't even have a Reyes account right now, like restaurants, liquor stores, things like that. So I think that getting capturing the the business is gonna be, you know, we're not gonna see it for at least six months or more because there's so many brand new places that are gonna start to do business.

Which is my little teaser for something project I have coming up that hopefully won't be able to talk about next time. But so I think I think it's gonna be hard, you know, there there's places that are just gonna drop the business that they had before or and or sign up with the new distributors. So I think there's a huge change on the account level with the distributors that's happening right now and gonna continue to happen at least for the next year, I would say, right.

Jessie Ott (12:36)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (12:36)
So you're

saying you think Reyes is los is missing business because they don't have the account set up with all these gu like with buyers? Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (12:42)
Thousand percent. Thousand percent. Yeah. Yep. But they will, they will,

you know, the accounts are gonna say,

Jessie Ott (12:48)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (12:49)
shoot, okay, we do have to sign up. But

Kate Jerkens (12:49)
They don't have a choice. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (12:52)
think about even just pulling one piece of the puzzle, the wine bars, right? The wine bars they might not be selling soda or they not, you know, or even yeah, states that they're just not didn't have necessarily a stronghold in with certain types of accounts.

You know, that they're gonna capture within the next year.

Kate Jerkens (13:14)
I mean yeah, when we w I was in Texas anecdotally in April and a lot we were talking to a lot of the liquor store owners and they didn't know Reyes at all. Like so this was gonna be all brand new to them. So

Caitlyn LuBell (13:22)
Exactly. Yep. Exactly. So

Ella Parlor (13:24)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (13:24)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (13:26)
I think their numbers are just gonna jump by default with all the brands that they had because they're gonna get so many new liquor stores, restaurants, hotels, things like that signing up with them. So it's gonna be pretty interesting to watch that increase.

I

Jessie Ott (13:40)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (13:41)
Kate, do you know where they decided to put their headquarters out here? 'Cause I still didn't I wasn't sure about that.

Kate Jerkens (13:46)
I have not heard, to be honest. I mean they've got plenty

Ella Parlor (13:49)
Yeah, it's a really big decision.

Kate Jerkens (13:51)
of they've got plenty of G you know, they've plenty of buildings in, you know, obviously where where the RNDC headquarters were, but I don't know if that if they've decided.

Ella Parlor (13:59)
Yeah. Solid eight, yes. They're I don't know if they're absorbing all eight warehouses. they are. It looks like.

Kate Jerkens (14:04)
That's a lot.

Caitlyn LuBell (14:06)
I w

Kate Jerkens (14:06)
I I think it

Caitlyn LuBell (14:06)
you would say.

Kate Jerkens (14:07)
was all part of it, yeah. Yeah.

Ella Parlor (14:08)
Yeah.

Texas is a logistics game and H E B I again I just love H E B 'cause they're on top of mine all the time over here in Texas. But they really do serve as logistics. It's hard to describe you

Kate Jerkens (14:18)
Is it an incredible grocery store too? Like do you just love like is it like a grocery store that makes you happy?

Jessie Ott (14:22)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (14:23)
you would have to quite literally drive come out here to to experience it and understand it. It's

Kate Jerkens (14:27)
Okay. I love a good grocery store.

Ella Parlor (14:30)
so true. But it's beyond so

Jessie Ott (14:31)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (14:31)
what I would compare it to is when you walk into Costco, how massive that is, but

Kate Jerkens (14:35)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (14:36)
Instead of step and repeat palettes, imagine if it's individual products. So Costco, you're seeing palettes on palettes of product, right? So it's a step and repeat of the same exact product. Imagine

Kate Jerkens (14:45)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (14:46)
if every row was a different product. So it's a it

the their skew

Kate Jerkens (14:50)
Wow.

Ella Parlor (14:50)
count is far beyond COSTCO and like I said, their wine and beer section is is incredible.

Jessie Ott (14:58)
It is.

Ella Parlor (14:59)
there are always those rumors about whether or not grocery will be able to have liquor distribution in Texas. It's a hot topic and rumor that that is consistent, but just keeping in mind they're getting these numbers without any spirits dollars at all. No spirits volume.

Kate Jerkens (15:13)
Real.

Caitlyn LuBell (15:14)
Yeah. Well, New York too, right? They've been trying to get booze in grocery forever, but there's stronghold going on there from the Indies saying nope. So

Jessie Ott (15:24)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (15:25)
it's it's interesting though now, right? Because now they're already going to be doing business, probably the grocery will probably be doing business with Reyes. So how's that, you know, is Reyes going be pushing that even more? that that's very interesting. I didn't even think about that until just now.

Kate Jerkens (15:41)
Maybe an interesting lobby for them for sure.

Caitlyn LuBell (15:43)
Yeah.

Wow.

Jessie Ott (15:46)
I was shocked to see even Publix supermarkets up here at number three at you know sixty billion. I didn't realize, but they're all actually in seven states, so it's not like a regional play like HEB, they're actually a little bit more spread out, but it's another good store, it's a good shopping experience. Wine is very expensive there, so I I rarely ever buy it there. But

Kate Jerkens (16:09)
But you can get

liquor at Publix, right? 'Cause they the liquor like it s like in Florida, they have like their separate stores, which probably yeah.

Jessie Ott (16:15)
Yeah. And

their liquor is way too expensive. Never buy it there. So I don't know

how they're doing with with that, but I think it's too expensive.

Caitlyn LuBell (16:24)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (16:26)
And I I love Loves every time we travel. I always get the app out and go to Loves, so I'm happy to see them in top fifteen. Anything else on this loves number fifteen. The

Caitlyn LuBell (16:31)
I was just here.

Ella Parlor (16:34)
I love them too.

Kate Jerkens (16:34)
Wait, which one is that? Never heard of that

one.

Jessie Ott (16:39)
The

Loves their their gas station stops.

Caitlyn LuBell (16:42)
Yeah,

I was gonna

Kate Jerkens (16:42)
Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (16:43)
say they're like truckers truck stops, right? But they're like the big ones. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (16:45)
Yeah, but they're clean. And they have they

have gluten free jerky, so that makes me happy. The bathrooms are clean, so I know what

Caitlyn LuBell (16:52)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (16:52)
that's safe, you know.

Kate Jerkens (16:53)
Is it like Bucky

like ha remember how Buc-ees was so like yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (16:55)
Yeah, it's like, yep,

correct.

Jessie Ott (16:56)
It's not

Ella Parlor (16:57)
But it's Yeah, it's more

Jessie Ott (16:57)
it's not Buc-ees level, but

Ella Parlor (17:00)
for truckers, I would say. I lived off

Kate Jerkens (17:01)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (17:02)
of I love to brag whenever I meet a truck driver. I'm like, I lived off exit seventy two, the Loves off seventy two in Alabama. It's the only stop

Caitlyn LuBell (17:09)
Okay.

Ella Parlor (17:10)
in Alabama, so any truck driver knows what that means. But they

Kate Jerkens (17:13)
Ha ha.

Caitlyn LuBell (17:13)
Ha ha.

Ella Parlor (17:13)
had showers, accommodations, but my little car

Caitlyn LuBell (17:16)
yeah.

Ella Parlor (17:16)
is pumping gas with all these big trucks 'cause that was just

Kate Jerkens (17:19)
I love

it. Yeah.

Ella Parlor (17:19)
my gas station in Alabama.

but they're they're more for the truck drivers, like and for the long haul. So Buc-ees is more of an experien like a consumer experience for the individual consumer.

Kate Jerkens (17:30)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (17:31)
this is really for the really the logistics that's driving all of our business

Kate Jerkens (17:35)
Got it.

Ella Parlor (17:36)
here with Beverage. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (17:39)
Anything else before we move on?

Ella Parlor (17:42)
I I'm

Jessie Ott (17:43)
Hey

Ella Parlor (17:43)
curious about your opinion on something, and I have not gotten a straight answer from anyone, and maybe you have an opinion. So I have known Reyes a long time because my career started with Diageo. and I manage the spirits and beer business in Southern California, Alabama, and Mississippi. and so I had the pleasure of working with both sides of the business, and I'm so fascinated that Diageo having all the data they do with Reyes because of a 20-plus-year partnership.

Seeing

all these other spirits companies migrate that way and and Diageo of course, not making the shift. I just I I think it's very interesting that Diageo gets the best of both worlds, is kind of how I see it. And I'm interested

Kate Jerkens (18:24)
Hmm.

Ella Parlor (18:24)
about what you think. Like as we see all these spirits companies moving around and shifts, like Diageo is is a pretty solid supplier on both sides of the business, arguably the best who can do both spirits and beer. and they keep their route to market separate. I was just curious if you had any thoughts about that. Because no one seems to

Give me a straight answer on why they think that could be

Caitlyn LuBell (18:43)
Well, all all

I can tell you is I know that Diageo's been doing layoffs. So I don't really understand that piece, but I know for a fact they've been doing layoffs. A lot of trademarking and marketing, I believe, but but that's kind of interesting. I I don't know anything about honestly, Reyes is completely new to me because I'm from Wine and Spirits. So in New York. So I I didn't really have exposure to Reyes. So Jessie, do you know?

Jessie Ott (19:09)
Well, my guess is relationships. They've been in business together for so long. And you remember when Constellation tried to to merge their their beer and spirit teams and it was a complete disaster?

Kate Jerkens (19:20)
Uh-huh.

Jessie Ott (19:22)
I just don't think they want to mess with it. They're too big of a a volume driver to to to play around. I I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I think it's a really good question that you're asking. but it my speculation is you got these guys that have been

doing business with the same people for the last twenty, thirty, whatever plus years, I'm sure they they're just don't want to change. At least until now.

Ella Parlor (19:46)
They're it's more that

yeah, it's more that they're happy with Southern rather than not trusting Reyes with their spirits business is probably your positioning.

Caitlyn LuBell (19:53)
No.

Kate Jerkens (19:53)
Right.

But also let Reyes look.

In California, and I've met

Ella Parlor (19:59)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (20:00)
people who work for Reyes, especially in the first year of them kind of doing what they were doing with like Sazerac and with Tito's and everything like that. And and Reyes had to learn, they had a lot of learnings in California, and I think they're gonna have a lot of learnings in these other I mean, they're going into big markets, big spirits

markets.

Jessie Ott (20:15)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (20:16)
So maybe

Caitlyn LuBell (20:16)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (20:17)
it's a wait and see, it's not a no, but it's like, let's see what they can do, let's see, right before we put our eggs

Jessie Ott (20:22)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (20:23)
all in that basket. Because I mean, this is a you know, it's it's not the

Same it's not the same sales pitch, it's not that you cannot, you know, like and then it it it's it's different. Like a the you know, the the guys that I met I met a guy in a bar who was a beer a beer rep for Reyes and he's like all of a sudden now I have to talk about all these things that like, you know, I'm learning as I go and that's tough. So I think there's just I think it's a wait and see and then and and figure out how they're gonna how they're also gonna do it internally, you know.

Ella Parlor (20:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, those hard revs.

Caitlyn LuBell (20:54)
Well, I think I

think it's actually great because you know, it's diversifying salespeople for sure. And yes, they're gonna have a learning curve, but it's great because they unfortunately are losing business to non-alk and boost free and functional and alt bev all the words that we want to use, right? And so they will have to learn all these new products, but I think it's really great for that the the feet on the street, the salespeople and the sales

teams.

Kate Jerkens (21:20)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (21:20)
To

be learning these new avenues. I knew nothing about beer because I never worked in beer and then started recruiting, getting beer clients and I was like, I have a whole new kind of world to learn, right? But you learn it. But I think I think it's great for the sales team, if not anything else. Sorry about what we were gonna

Kate Jerkens (21:37)
Yeah. I think it just

Caitlyn LuBell (21:38)
say.

Kate Jerkens (21:39)
it just depends on how some of them are not don't feel have the same feeling if you've been selling beer for the last however many years and you've had the same

Caitlyn LuBell (21:45)
they don't want, right.

Kate Jerkens (21:46)
route. So I think

Ella Parlor (21:47)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (21:47)
that's the stuff they're just that's just HR, right? They're gonna that's gonna be a lot of learning.

Ella Parlor (21:52)
I I've had the opportunity to work with blended teams, especially with the more independent distributors that just don't have the bandwidth to have a different department

Kate Jerkens (22:00)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (22:00)
across categories. And what I see time and time again, because of the consumption occasion, right, we know that beer

Hyperbolically, early in the morning, grocery store deliveries, spirits later in the afternoon, on premise, independent deliveries, right? So the route to market is very consumption based. And

Caitlyn LuBell (22:18)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (22:19)
so what we'll see with the sales teams is they might be blended, but I could I could say see by the sales numbers, I'm like, that's a beer girl. She's beer, her beer numbers are

Caitlyn LuBell (22:27)
Yeah, yeah. Hundred percent.

Ella Parlor (22:29)
strong. She likes the beer route to market. She has spirits in her basket or in her bag, but ultimately.

Her strength is beer, and while I I, having sold all three, fully love and want to believe that I can do it all and we all can do it all, and diversity is great, at the end of the day, it's better to do one thing well than try to do three

Kate Jerkens (22:49)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (22:49)
things mediocre. and because the route to market is so distinct, and you know, beer is a volume play, like I said at the grocery store, spirits is just a entirely different game that has a whole spirits chains business.

I think that the sales teams do not naturally blend. And so yeah, I

Kate Jerkens (23:10)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (23:11)
I just find it fascinating. I'm like, okay, we'll see what they do, but I don't know it's as easy as it as it sounds to just give everyone products and expect them to thrive.

Caitlyn LuBell (23:19)
No, you

Kate Jerkens (23:19)
Agreed.

Agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (23:21)
no, a hundred percent. I I think it's nice that they have the option, but you're totally correct. Cause I remember when when Southern split into like nine different divisions and I was with Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and we were predominantly wine and they basically gave us a team of spirit salespeople and we tried to train them until we were

Blew in the face. And some of them grabbed on and they were excited and they were like, I can make extra money and this is fun and I love wine. And some of them just it was a brick wall. It was like they're like, Yeah, thanks for the training. I'll take the samples. I'm gonna go sell my Pernod Ricard. So I I think

Kate Jerkens (24:00)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (24:00)
you're definitely right. That's a really good point.

Jessie Ott (24:03)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (24:03)
I think it's about the person, but just I guess the fact that they have the opportunity to make extra, hopefully, commission dollars or.

Jessie Ott (24:11)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (24:11)
Or

learn something new. I don't know. Hopefully some of them will, right? Are they talking

Jessie Ott (24:16)
N

Caitlyn LuBell (24:16)
about splitting off the teams at Reyes? Does anybody know that?

Kate Jerkens (24:21)
Well, it's not that clear the ones in the RNDC markets, they've literally just come in and they're just running it like Reyes is is now the name on the door, but it's still a lot of the same RNDC folks. So in those markets where they've gone into those these spirits markets, there's no consolidation of teams. Like these

guys are still selling the same product. So I it's still

Caitlyn LuBell (24:40)
Okay.

Kate Jerkens (24:40)
there's a separation in those markets still. and it

Caitlyn LuBell (24:42)
Okay, got it.

Kate Jerkens (24:43)
felt like some of the leadership I talked to, like they were gonna kinda let things go for a y you know, like I no one wants to be quoted, but probably like run it for a year or two and see what what

how what's working, what's not, before they make a lot of big moves. I mean, this is a big undertaking.

Caitlyn LuBell (24:58)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (24:58)
just even from like a human resources standpoint and then from a tech standpoint. I think I heard yesterday that they're moving everybody to to Rey's tech in the next couple of weeks. I mean, it's a lot the systems and all that kind of stuff. So I just I think that's what they've got to figure out before they figure out if there's efficiencies or if or non-efficiencies and in consolidating teams

Caitlyn LuBell (25:21)
Yeah, interesting.

Interesting.

Kate Jerkens (25:23)
It's a big, big

Jessie Ott (25:23)
Isn't it any

Kate Jerkens (25:24)
undertaking. I I didn't you look at you read some of the the the stuff on RDC right now because of the bankruptcy filings and like it's you just I guess you just I never thought I mean I know RNDC was number two, but like they're just h it's hu they're massive. They were massive. It's a lot of employees, it's a lot of a lot of a lot.

Ella Parlor (25:45)
Our industry is. Our industry, I think, we forget how

Kate Jerkens (25:46)
Yeah, yeah.

Ella Parlor (25:49)
big little I call it it is. It's mass hundreds

Caitlyn LuBell (25:51)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (25:52)
of millions of people employed. trillion we're at we're you know, we're a trillion dollar industry. So it's it is it's a lot to think about that we are a part of this big machine.

Kate Jerkens (26:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Jessie Ott (26:06)
Well I'll keep going.

Kate Jerkens (26:08)
Go visual capitalist giving us getting us talking here. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (26:11)
Yeah, well Reyes is s I mean, it's such a big deal, you know, in

Caitlyn LuBell (26:12)
Be happening.

Jessie Ott (26:15)
our it's for all of us. I mean, I'm not impacted personally by that, but it's a big part of our industry and it does impact the news cycles and what's next and you know,

Kate Jerkens (26:26)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (26:26)
brands trying to get distribution, you know, here, you know, in this in the US. there's a lot of things that are just on hold and we just let's let's hope let's hope it doesn't take them two years.

Hopefully it's like more like six months to a year, but it

Kate Jerkens (26:39)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (26:39)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (26:40)
you know, it's a big moving machine, right? So you can't you can't just make changes until you really know what you're s what you're doing to to need to make any changes.

Caitlyn LuBell (26:51)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (26:53)
So I just pulled some basic numbers just broadly across on spirits retail. Wine is down about nine percent, beer plus NA beer volume down four percent, but non-alcoholic beer is up fifteen, NA beer, wine, and spirits up twenty-two percent, and it couldn't find the data for THC and CBD. I apologize for that, I'll get I'll get it next time. So

Nothing that very surprising here. I really thought that at some point the wine industry would kind of level itself off. I don't know if that's gonna happen. I know the bulk wine category is is not doing very well right now and they're selling

Caitlyn LuBell (27:37)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (27:37)
premium Pinot at lower prices than they want. And maybe they're gonna start pulling wine vines and growing other crops. You know, it may come to that.

Caitlyn LuBell (27:49)
They are already.

They are already. They have been. They are in California. They are in France. They've been definitely pulling vines.

Kate Jerkens (27:55)
I mean

and burn yeah, they're I mean in Sonoma County they're burning some like they just it's kinda sad. Makes me sad is where I'm from.

Jessie Ott (28:05)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (28:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ella Parlor (28:07)
Not from a vineyard

Jessie Ott (28:07)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (28:08)
perspective, but what I'm seeing a lot more in the innovations that I've been working on, which are confus I first of all, I still don't fully when I said adult beverage earlier, it's because I don't fully trust the segmentation that we see across data from an input output perspective in terms of

Kate Jerkens (28:24)
Hm.

Ella Parlor (28:25)
what what is non alk, where do we w where you know, how does it become NA beer, all like those conversations. I still don't

fully trust how we are segmenting it as an industry, if that makes sense at a brand level.

Jessie Ott (28:39)
I agree.

Ella Parlor (28:39)
I don't even think

Caitlyn LuBell (28:40)
I'm bringing.

Ella Parlor (28:40)
there's just no standardization or consistency. So that I think makes just any data set really difficult to to

Jessie Ott (28:47)
Mm, sí.

Ella Parlor (28:48)
juxtapose. But specifically when I look at this data here, I'm working with a lot of wine-based cocktail

RTD brands and the frustration part back to what we were saying earlier about the segmentation of a sales team, because it's wine based legally, sometimes it ends up with the wine team, you know, as a canned wine. But it's like, well,

Jessie Ott (29:11)
Right.

Ella Parlor (29:11)
no, it's still positioned from a consumption occasion standpoint, which is always my focus.

As a beer RTD, FMB, again, all these different acronyms we could use for the exact same product. and and so like where would that fit into here? A

Kate Jerkens (29:27)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (29:27)
wine space, a wine-based cocktail, or I I don't know if we call it RTD, wine-based RTD. So alcoholic, wine-based, but it's in the beer aisle right next to the hard Mountain Dew.

Caitlyn LuBell (29:41)
Well, the retailers have a really Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (29:41)
my god, don't get me started on how hard Mountain Dew.

Caitlyn LuBell (29:45)
Well, and the retailers have such a hard time because they don't even know where to put the product. They're you know. But I remember

Jessie Ott (29:49)
Right. It's a mess.

Caitlyn LuBell (29:51)
that happening when we had like a you know, I think we Villa Maria did a sparkling Sauvignon Blanc and and the stores were like, I don't know, do I put this with the Sauve Blancs or do I put this in New Zealand or do I put this in with the, you know, sparkling wines? And it was just like they don't I think like you said, Ella, there's so many

different words and names and even us we're

Kate Jerkens (30:13)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (30:13)
like, booze free. We just go with booze free because we're like Booze Biz, booze free. But they don't even know where to put these products, you know, because they're just so different. Then they're gonna want their RTD section, but then they have this big mix. It's really kind of making a lot of gray lines, right?

Kate Jerkens (30:31)
To Ella's point, then there's the drinks like what I drink, like Hiyos, I'll put that as an example, that are, they don't fall under any of this, but they are an alcohol alternative and they're being sold in the alcohol section so for instance, I get like I have three kids, so we use Target delivery a lot here in California. And if I order Hiyo, which has no alcohol, they're not they're they don't call them non-alks either, but they're in the alcohol aisle. I have to be here to sign for them, which I find to be fascinating, which is so and I'm like, but wait, there's

Caitlyn LuBell (30:58)
See you done.

Kate Jerkens (30:59)
no alcohol in

them and they're not even being marketed as non-alcohol, they're being al marketed as like an alternative to drinking in the alcohol area, but I have to sign for it. And I'm like, so where does that fall on this list too? Right? And like

and and why are you guys requiring people to si s like sign for them? Like why do I have to show an ID?

Caitlyn LuBell (31:19)
Yeah, that's so bad.

Jessie Ott (31:20)
That's bizarre.

Kate Jerkens (31:22)
But that's like

to Ella's point, it's getting it's really c that's that's the confusion. I'm sure Target's like, I think I like what they like the the retailer

Caitlyn LuBell (31:29)
I don't know what to do with it.

Kate Jerkens (31:31)
themselves is like what are what this is where they've categorized it 'cause they're not really sure what to do. I think it's re Yeah. No, recess all

Ella Parlor (31:37)
And the consumer doesn't know where to find it in the store either, right? So you spend

Kate Jerkens (31:41)
those ones, those types of things. It's like where am I going for this stuff? Yeah.

Jessie Ott (31:44)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (31:44)
Nope.

And it goes into I've seen it in the pharmacy section. Like it's so interesting where I'm being forced to

Kate Jerkens (31:49)
Right.

Ella Parlor (31:50)
stretch into areas that I haven't worked a store. 'cause I've worked the fruit section. Like, okay, we put some mimosas, put some wines, put some ciders

Kate Jerkens (31:58)
Sure.

Ella Parlor (31:59)
in the fruit section. Sure, we've worked in produce. but pharmacy, like the pharmacy met but yeah, that's where they're putting a lot of the adaptogens. from a shopper's experience, I struggle with that.

Kate Jerkens (32:07)
Huh it makes sense in a weird way,

Caitlyn LuBell (32:07)
my god.

Jessie Ott (32:07)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (32:11)
but

Ella Parlor (32:13)
I trust grocery data probably more than anyone else. I think that they understand our consumers better than we do because they live with them across all categories outside of beverage.

Jessie Ott (32:22)
All categories.

Ella Parlor (32:24)
And so I trust that, and again, incrementality, if if you are able to position yourself, that's a space, that's a white space for you as a beverage if you can get in there, right? So from a set perspective, maybe you can't get into the oversaturated non-alk section, but if you can find that incrementality in another place in the store.

But from a consumer shopper experience, I don't know where to buy what I'm looking for. Like

Caitlyn LuBell (32:48)
I know.

Ella Parlor (32:49)
you know, are we again,

Kate Jerkens (32:50)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (32:50)
i is it more occasion-based or is it category based?

Jessie Ott (32:54)
Or maybe it's e commerce.

Kate Jerkens (32:56)
Yeah, I mean then s for me I'm just going on Instacart or Target and having them deliver so I don't have to go looking for it now. 'Cause it's too confusing,

Jessie Ott (33:03)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (33:04)
to your point. Yeah. Yeah, someone deliver

Caitlyn LuBell (33:04)
Just type it in what you want and interesting.

Kate Jerkens (33:08)
it, so I don't have to find it.

Jessie Ott (33:10)
Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy, Kate. just some top level economic stuff, not getting so drowned in it like I was looking for. Just showing a little bit of GDP, you know, consumer price index, unemployment s remains fairly stable. borrowing of course is still high. I know there we we saw CBS Sunday mornings. I don't know if you ever watched that, but they were talking about how

the average two income family that you know is educated ha they have good jobs they can't afford a home and they're paying three thousand dollars in rent and the problem is is there's not enough housing. They're they're four million houses short and it's increasing the value of the homes and the homes the the the price of the of the homes have gone up like this and income has stayed down here. And I thought

Kate Jerkens (34:09)
Right.

Caitlyn LuBell (34:09)
no, it's

gone, it's gone downwards income. Salaries are going

Jessie Ott (34:12)
It's

Caitlyn LuBell (34:13)
down because in a supply and demand market, when there's a million candidates out there, people looking for the same job, the companies, their revenue is down. I have this conversation like every day. Unfortunately, revenue is down in these companies. When revenue is down, profits are down. We're nobody's in the charity business and the booze industry, right? So then they have to start making cuts. So what they do is they make they

do layoffs, but then they also, when they're hiring new people in, they're hiring them at a lower salary. And I unfortunately have been told directly to my face on a Zooms, well, somebody will work for that because there's so many people out of work. So salaries are actually going down. some of it is course correction. I'm not gonna lie. Some salaries have gotten really inflated, but I think this is the probably one of the biggest

Challenges just in our whole country right now is cost of living is going up, but salaries are going down. And it's not just our industry. And they're not going down drastically, but five to ten K to go backwards, you know, when people are constantly looking for

Jessie Ott (35:20)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (35:21)
higher salaries, not lower salaries. And then it makes that house that much more unaffordable, right? So

Jessie Ott (35:27)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (35:28)
I I think I, as a recruiter, I don't believe these.

unemployment numbers whatsoever. And maybe our industry is just more impacted and other industries maybe are less, you know, have more growth. But we're we're flooded.

Kate Jerkens (35:44)
You think unemployment's much higher?

Caitlyn LuBell (35:46)
We're flooded with candidates. We I used to stay up at night saying we have to give every person that comes into the system a verbal hug. We have to. People are vulnerable, they're stressed, they just need somebody to talk to. We can't keep up.

I mean, we had to put, you know, we had to put an boozebiz bio, fill out your boosbiz bio on our website and you'll go into the system as soon as we get something that could fit, we'll reach out and it kills me. I I wish that we could talk to every single person, but boy, in the last I would say year and a half, we have just been flooded with people. So it it's just interesting where you know they kind of push the blame and it's like, hmm, people can't afford their.

houses anymore. So or to buy because salaries are going down.

it's just broken.

Ella Parlor (36:35)
I I

I think what's somewhat from a food and beverage perspective inspiring to me about these numbers is that again, we're talking about shifts. So while something may be down, maybe something shifting. So I just had an article published a couple months ago where I spoke to the Food Institute about what's happening with private label. HEB, by the way, winning because of private label, to take it back to that slide. But I think that where

Gen Z and millennials maybe would have put money away for a home, knowing that it's a little out of reach. The justification then becomes I've earned this finishing salt that costs $50 at my Kroger.

I have earned this, however much you're spending for your Hiyo delivery. Cause beverage delivery like gives me a heart

Kate Jerkens (37:25)
Ha ha ha.

Ella Parlor (37:27)
attack. Those economics do not talk about economics. I'm like, DTC is not sustainable here. Like financially.

Kate Jerkens (37:33)
Crazy.

Ella Parlor (37:34)
It's insane, right? and so I'm like, okay, but where do we justify that? well, since I can't afford a house and I can't really afford a car, I can Uber now, but I can't afford a car. Like as these certain markers of our parents' generation become less and less accessible, what we're going to do is create experiences for ourselves. And that's where beverage gets to be a part of the conversation. So while I would never say I want to

a country full of people who can't buy a house but are spending more money on premium luxury liquor brands. I do think that there is an opportunity for us as the beverage industry to create experiences and and really compel our consumers to enjoy themselves where they maybe don't have that savings or or that opportunity to get that that marker. And and maybe it's not really becoming a goal for us anymore either.

I know for me I d deprioritize that tremendously. When you look at the reality of the situation when you're a single woman, it's like, guess I'm not buying a house, you know?

Caitlyn LuBell (38:37)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (38:38)
And so you reallocate your funds. And I think there

Kate Jerkens (38:42)
Hmm.

Ella Parlor (38:42)
there's an opportunity, I think, for us overall to to be more focused on where are they shifting those dollars? Because if the person can't afford the four hundred thousand, I you still have to put a down payment, right? So where are they

Kate Jerkens (38:56)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (38:57)
shifting those dollars?

Caitlyn LuBell (38:57)
Yeah, that's

the problem is the down payment. I mean, that's

Jessie Ott (38:59)
Yeah, the

Caitlyn LuBell (39:00)
where I was stuck as a single person. I was stuck on that. I just couldn't come up with the down payment for to get a condo in Manhattan in yeah,

Jessie Ott (39:07)
Well that's

Caitlyn LuBell (39:09)
in my forties. It was ridiculous.

Jessie Ott (39:12)
The median house price I think is like four hundred and thirty thousand.

Caitlyn LuBell (39:16)
I that's crazy.

Jessie Ott (39:18)
And yeah, I mean who can and and I think also to your point, Ella, you made a good point about spending decisions being so young. And when you think about how bombarded they've been as a consumer spending money on TikTok and spending money on this, that, and the other, they don't have the extra money.

And then now jobs are hard and a house is so unbelievably challenging, they're like, Well, screw it. I'm just gonna enjoy what I what I can when you know now and live with mom and dad. You know, I mean

Kate Jerkens (39:53)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (39:53)
that's it makes sense.

Kate Jerkens (39:56)
And then the balance though is is like so completely different perspective. Married, three children, living in California, we have a house, but like to take our family out to dinner anymore has become like something that we like used to like kinda take for granted and would just do has now become beyond

It's not affordable anymore to go out to dinner. It's not

Caitlyn LuBell (40:19)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (40:19)
affordable to do some

Jessie Ott (40:21)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (40:21)
of the things we were doing even two years ago. And it's very noticeable. And like groceries

Jessie Ott (40:26)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (40:26)
and all that kind of stuff. So like families are like the discretionary income has really, really, really

gone away are really really lowered. It's really, I didn't notice it at first on my grocery bills until like I well, I also have a teenage boy, so I feel like maybe he's just like eating me out of house and home and maybe it's just him. But it's like I

Jessie Ott (40:45)
Yeah. They'll do that.

Caitlyn LuBell (40:45)
Yeah, they do that.

Kate Jerkens (40:47)
so like for an example, I love a diet like I work from home and we only have two cars. We have three drivers, two cars. So when what someone gets home with a car at the end the day, I like to go get a diet coke. It's kind of like my thing and I think everyone knows McDonald's has the best diet cokes and there's one close by. But a diet coke from

McDonald's is like two dollars and forty nine cents, right? Which is sort of crazy, right? When you think about that. And then you think about a family driving through to even a McDonald's these days into like if your soda

Jessie Ott (41:16)
Yeah, it's not cheap.

Kate Jerkens (41:17)
is two dollars and forty nine cents, like these types of things have just gotten so ex so expensive. So it's interesting because

coming from different perspec like it's you gotta hope that like I'm eating out less, so I gotta hope that Gen Z is eating out more so that we don't completely lose our restaurant industry. You know what I mean?

Caitlyn LuBell (41:37)
Well, and

I know we've talked a lot about the Gen Z not drinking and things like that, but I was, I was, I might have said this last time. So I apologize if I did, but I was at dinner with a friend who has a 21-year-old. And I, you know, I said, What's going on? Why aren't you guys drinking? You guys drinking? She's like, We're drinking. I said, What are you drinking? Pinot Grigio, RTDs, vodka, and whatever, soda or fruit juice or whatever. She said, We're just not drinking out.

And we're just not drinking a lot because we can't afford it. And I'm like, yeah, who can afford a $24 cocktail? I I at

Jessie Ott (42:13)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (42:14)
my age, I can barely afford a $24 cocktail,

Jessie Ott (42:16)
Right.

Caitlyn LuBell (42:17)
let alone if I was 21 years old, you know. I mean, I know minimum wage has gone up, but you know, even if they're making $20 an hour, so they gotta work one hour for one drink. And you know, $24 is high. That's a New York pricing,

Kate Jerkens (42:29)
Yeah, the math doesn't make sense.

Caitlyn LuBell (42:31)
right? But yeah, it doesn't make sense. And she's like, we just can't afford it. So

It's not even that they don't wanna be drinking, it's that they can't afford it. So which we couldn't either, but I think our when we were kids the costs were just

Jessie Ott (42:44)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (42:45)
way better.

Kate Jerkens (42:45)
Cocktails are more

expensive right now because it's the only way

Jessie Ott (42:48)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (42:48)
that restaurants and bars are making profit. Like, so so they're driving those prices

Caitlyn LuBell (42:51)
Worse. We have to.

Kate Jerkens (42:53)
about as high as they

Jessie Ott (42:53)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (42:54)
can. I mean, I think I told you on the last one, like I had an uncle nearest old fashioned somewhere recently, and after the tip it was $33. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. Right? It was a good

Jessie Ott (43:04)
Mm.

Kate Jerkens (43:04)
old fashioned, but $33 for an old fashioned, like, I that's not like

Jessie Ott (43:08)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (43:09)
not everyone can do that. But bars and restaurants are being driven to because the cost of food is so expensive, too, you know?

Caitlyn LuBell (43:15)
Well, they have to.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (43:16)
Yeah. That was one observation

Kate Jerkens (43:17)
Yeah, it's kind of a tough one.

Jessie Ott (43:19)
that we had when we were we went to Portugal in in June for my fiftieth birthday and

the cost of everything over there was cheaper. I'm not everything, my tattoo is pretty expensive. But like

Caitlyn LuBell (43:34)
Ha ha.

Jessie Ott (43:36)
but we got I've just had one example is a a a one and a half liter of water was a one euro and a half.

Kate Jerkens (43:44)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (43:44)
And

we are so not used to paying that those kind of prices.

Kate Jerkens (43:48)
No

Jessie Ott (43:49)
And it was it was so nice. Like I got I know it's in in the U EU, but you know the Brie wheels from France, I love them. They're like they're like nine or ten dollars

Caitlyn LuBell (43:56)
Well so good. Stinking this.

Jessie Ott (43:59)
here, and I could get

Ella Parlor (44:00)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (44:01)
it for two and a half dollars.

Caitlyn LuBell (44:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (44:04)
Or euro, whatever.

So this I don't know if they're subsidizing food costs and all that kind of thing, because we went to Madeira and that's gotta be pretty expensive because I'm sure they import lots of things and there's no blueberries available on that island. but you can get wrong.

Kate Jerkens (44:18)
Interesting.

Jessie Ott (44:21)
Yeah, interest anyway, I digress. So I'm not gonna spend much time on this. Gas is up. We know sentiment is the one thing I wanna point out about this slide, and that's down nineteen points since last June. And that's that's bad. That's been a problem for a while.

consumer sentiment.

Caitlyn LuBell (44:38)
Mm.

Jessie Ott (44:39)
Okay. Retail food and beverage total up 2.2. And then here wine and spirits are down as we talked about. spirits grew. This is Circana data via FinTech. it's interesting. The prices are going down, so I don't know. I haven't been out about much this this half of year, but I'm guessing that.

There's so much pressure on volume that prices are coming down. Also, I know that there's there's the effect of the RTDs that are impacting the overall, you know, price decline because they're just exploding so much.

As you can see here, the premixed

Kate Jerkens (45:21)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (45:21)
category is just they're just killing it. other world whiskey, Suntory and Hibiki apparently Japanese whiskies are still growing. Tequila, American whiskey and vodka are not are stableish. and then rum and Canadian down.

I wanted to just take a look at what the price points were and what the what it looked like. and here's your RTDs.

And if you look at this 25 to 29 and you look over here, you can see that the whiskey categories are down here, and vodka is down. But what's interesting is that there's growth in the 50 plus whiskey.

So is

Kate Jerkens (46:09)
We still see it when

a like limited time offer goes out, like an LTO goes out and it's like an interesting finish or interesting something. Those things go so fast still. Like, yeah.

Jessie Ott (46:20)
Yeah, that's that's good. It's

they are your aficionados, right? Like my my brother in law, he's

Kate Jerkens (46:28)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (46:29)
he's he's in a bourbon and he gets like four bottles a quarter or something like that. So he's constantly getting and those are probably all priced in that fifty to a hundred or at least twenty five plus.

Kate Jerkens (46:42)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (46:42)
Well, that

links into that whole thing of like people are still drinking. They're just they're not drinking as much, but they're drinking better because hey,

Jessie Ott (46:49)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (46:50)
I'm only going out on Friday nights now. Now now I'm gonna get myself a nice quality cocktail because or you

Jessie Ott (46:56)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (46:57)
know, I'm I'm only buying one bottle of booze to bring home instead of three. I'm gonna get something really nice. And, you know,

Kate Jerkens (47:03)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (47:04)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (47:04)
so I think that makes perfect sense. I mean, people drink less, but then they drink better products, right? It's more

Kate Jerkens (47:11)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (47:11)
Special.

Jessie Ott (47:12)
Yeah.

I think the tequila plus over forty five is also very interesting. almost growing ten percent. So that's still healthy at that price point. That's that's good. That's really good news. But you know, your lot of your really good tequilas land in that forty five to sixty five price point. You know, even mezcals, right?

Kate Jerkens (47:34)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (47:34)
And then here it is

By brand. So no surprise here. Cutwater, Surfside and Buzzballz. This is what we've seen for quite a quite a quite a while now. And this is by supplier. So obviously this is cut water.

Kate Jerkens (47:46)
And you t even when you talk

to drink people that are not supposed like of those three you say those that's what the college those are the three brands that they talk about, these three brands. Like it's crazy how well like college kids know these brands too.

Jessie Ott (47:58)
they're at a price point that's affordable. It's an occasion, right? And it's easy. They're at gas stations. They're the except they're accessible. I mean it it just

Kate Jerkens (48:09)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (48:10)
makes sense. And you know they're even in coolers, right? So

Kate Jerkens (48:15)
Right.

Jessie Ott (48:15)
it's like buying a Coke.

Kate Jerkens (48:19)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (48:19)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (48:19)
this just kind of shows you the volume. So the volume is up, but the pricing is down. So I think it's a combination of price supports plus the RTDs again. and then here's some interesting on premise where spirits, wine, and beer are all kind of up, food service sales are up, which is pretty interesting. so yeah.

Ella Parlor (48:44)
We saw a two billion dollar boost in our economy over here in Dallas. probably the best. Probably the best host city, I'm gonna say it. I think so. We had the most

Caitlyn LuBell (48:53)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (48:54)
matches.

Jessie Ott (48:54)
Ha

Ella Parlor (48:55)
We had the most matches. It wa it was so exciting. I got to visit a couple host cities and Dallas killed it. But yeah, it boosted our economy two billion dollars at AT&T.

Kate Jerkens (49:04)
That's amazing.

Ella Parlor (49:05)
At AT&T we went through eight million dollars of alcohol through the nine matches. And to give you perspective of what

Caitlyn LuBell (49:11)
Awesome.

Ella Parlor (49:12)
that is, don't quote me on this officially, but when I oversaw Crypto Arena and their spirit sales, they were doing a around

that in a month. So for every match, it was about a month worth of volume dollars at Crypto Arena, which

Jessie Ott (49:27)
Wow.

Ella Parlor (49:27)
has no blackout dates. Crypto Arena has games, concerts, something every single night.

Kate Jerkens (49:32)
yeah, nonstop.

Ella Parlor (49:34)
Arguably probab the top account, and AT&T blew it out the water. So

When people say we're not drinking and all again, I'm just wondering what the shifts are 'cause we're seeing a l I like almost wish we could look at just Texas's numbers 'cause you guys would feel so happy. You would feel so

Caitlyn LuBell (49:50)
Well New

Jessie Ott (49:50)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (49:50)
York New York too. Yeah, thank you, Texas. But New York

Kate Jerkens (49:51)
Thank you, Texas.

Ella Parlor (49:53)
We're surviving here.

Caitlyn LuBell (49:55)
too. I mean, New York has just been on fire. It was like ever, you know, it's kind of started with the Knicks, right? And then everybody just got super

Kate Jerkens (50:02)
yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (50:03)
jazzed. And it's just been it's

Jessie Ott (50:05)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (50:05)
just been busier and busier and busier. And now, you know, we had some of the the FIFA too. Well, it was actually in Jersey, but

You know, they call it New York. but it really boosted New York as well. I don't have any statistics on it, but I know that like the city has just been bumping and and

Kate Jerkens (50:23)
It boosted our spirits

and the spirits industry. I'll tell you this country wanted

Caitlyn LuBell (50:26)
Without a doubt.

Kate Jerkens (50:28)
like was just thriving and the energy was so good. Like you can't I that's

Ella Parlor (50:33)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (50:34)
that's feel good. Let's go get a cocktail kind of energy.

Caitlyn LuBell (50:37)
Yeah, we

Jessie Ott (50:37)
Yeah, for

Caitlyn LuBell (50:37)
need to keep

Jessie Ott (50:38)
sure.

Caitlyn LuBell (50:38)
it up because there's you know, peop it's very clear that Americans want, you know, you use the word before Ella, the experiences, right? And and it's it's just more and more. I mean, I see it all over Instagram and it's like, this is what people want. They want experiences,

Jessie Ott (50:54)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (50:55)
they want to go out. They, you know, it's crazy how much the pandemic damaged us that we're still so excited to get out of the door.

these days, you know, six years later or whatever. But but you know, that's why not to bring it to a Debbie Downer, but I see all these trade marketing and marketing roles getting cut. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like these

Kate Jerkens (51:16)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (51:17)
are roles that you need to fill because people want experiences. I want experiences. I want to go out on a Friday night and go do something fun because I've been working in my office all week and I'm like, get me out of here. Get me

Out in the public with people, doing something fun, having a drink in my hand. Yeah, all the things, right? So I hope that that whoever is paying attention and that we keep popping up with cool stuff like FIFA. We needed

Kate Jerkens (51:43)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (51:44)
that so bad. We needed so bad, you know. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (51:45)
yeah. Especially for the sentiment of our country and it was really

nice to see all these people who experien have such positive experiences while they were here. And that that's

Kate Jerkens (51:56)
gosh, yeah.

Jessie Ott (51:56)
we needed that.

Caitlyn LuBell (51:57)
Yeah, and let's keep it going like

Kate Jerkens (51:58)
It was amazing

to watch all of those like reels and things of like people coming here. I don't know, my favorite one still is like the Italian guy who like went to to dinner and ordered a Diet Coke back to and and they're like, Would you like another? And he's like, I can just have another one. And then they just kept bringing it to him. I don't know. It's just like the joy

Ella Parlor (52:15)
Not

Kate Jerkens (52:15)
is like, This place is amazing.

Ella Parlor (52:17)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (52:17)
yeah, it's

such a buzz and I I'm so happy. Were there other areas? I know that Texas and New York definitely got a lot of business from it. I believe SoCal too, right? Like San Diego. yeah.

Ella Parlor (52:27)
yeah.

Kate Jerkens (52:27)
We did well in SoCal and then 'cause

they had a they they were here at the new

new football stadium. I have a colleague that's in Kansas City and he said Kansas City was just incredible and Kansas City's kind of a smaller, kinda small town, but like the energy there and like the the amount of people that were there was incredible too. So I just think every city that had that was hosting loved it, you know?

Jessie Ott (52:48)
Yeah. There

is a little bit of a hang up though because of the extra security and all the extra things that cities had to pay to have these events in their cities. FIFA is basically taking all the money and they got ki all kinds of tax breaks and all the things and the cities are like in deficit

Kate Jerkens (53:05)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (53:05)
because they're like, Hey, yeah, we wanted to host you. We wanted to be a part of this, but share the wealth, man. Like

Caitlyn LuBell (53:12)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (53:13)
you know, so there's

Kate Jerkens (53:15)
That's unfortunate.

Jessie Ott (53:15)
I s I saw some rumblings

about that and yeah, talked to

Caitlyn LuBell (53:18)
Thank you.

Jessie Ott (53:18)
my mentor about that. It's a it's a it's a problem. Vancouver almost didn't do it because of their strict s stipulations on that.

Caitlyn LuBell (53:26)
Mm.

Jessie Ott (53:26)
And it just seems like you know, with the extra water breaks and the commercials and all the things that they made on this whole event, I I don't know whose ideas all that was. I'm glad they did it because

We're burning up this summer and they probably needed the break. But just great ideas to generate extra revenue.

Ella Parlor (53:47)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (53:47)
Absolutely.

I think it's also great. I have a friend whose son is a bartender. Like our we from where I live, you can like it's a you know, five minute walk to this bar that it does really well. But these bartenders were making a thousand dollars a night when the game was on, right? So I think a lot of our the spirits community, like the people that like really hold it up and that have been struggling a little bit, there was a really nice boost for individuals too, which I love to see.

Caitlyn LuBell (54:10)
Yeah, let's do more of this. Like what's next? Are we getting the Olympics

Kate Jerkens (54:12)
Yeah, bring all the games.

Caitlyn LuBell (54:14)
or like yeah, what are we getting next?

Ella Parlor (54:14)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (54:16)
Yeah,

Ella Parlor (54:16)
I

Kate Jerkens (54:17)
we're getting the

Olympics in Los Angeles, although there's a lot of controversy with that too, but it'll be interesting. I can't decide if I'm sti if I'm leaving or s if I'm leaving or staying. It's

Caitlyn LuBell (54:28)
When's it gonna be? Twenty

Kate Jerkens (54:29)
twenty twenty eight.

Caitlyn LuBell (54:30)
Okay, so we have some time, but

Kate Jerkens (54:32)
Yeah,

yeah. But you know, the whole thing you live here in the city, we're gonna be the host city, they've given us opportunities to like buy tickets, but the tickets are crazy expensive and it's like to watch day one. It's it's just like i it's it's this funny thing. I think I

Jessie Ott (54:45)
I know.

Kate Jerkens (54:46)
think i it's

Jessie Ott (54:47)
I think we're going to field hockey. I don't know anything about it.

Kate Jerkens (54:50)
I played field hockey in high school. I love I wanna go I wanna go to

Caitlyn LuBell (54:53)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (54:53)
field hockey. I'll go. Let's go. That'd be so fun.

Jessie Ott (54:58)
Yeah, I I've I've never watched it, but it's I mean it's a sport. Who cares? It's it'll be fun. And it's early games.

Kate Jerkens (55:03)
That's awesome.

Jessie Ott (55:05)
We're going out for a few days, so nothing nothing major, but it'd

Caitlyn LuBell (55:07)
Yes.

Jessie Ott (55:08)
be kind of fun. Maybe we'll meet up, Kate.

Kate Jerkens (55:10)
Yeah, would be great. Yes. This city has a lot to we got a lot of preparation. Ella, you've lived here before, right? You like it's there's still there's still lots to do.

Ella Parlor (55:17)
I mean, even

what happened outside of LAX, I'm sh I was shocked and I know that they did it for the World Cup, but when I got off at LAX, having that was my main airport for my whole life,

Kate Jerkens (55:28)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (55:29)
I was shocked by how clean the street like they fully redid that whole parking structure and like the entire

Kate Jerkens (55:34)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (55:34)
streets around LAX are the most beautiful they've ever been. I couldn't believe it.

Caitlyn LuBell (55:38)
Ha ha ha.

Kate Jerkens (55:38)
Yeah, it looks great.

Ella Parlor (55:39)
Santa Monica. Again, I used to live in Santa Monica off Venice Beach. Like not a single person out of place. It was like it was like a postcard. I've heard. I've heard. love it. my god. I was staying in Mar Vista when I came and visited this past time for people. Yeah, I know. Yeah,

Kate Jerkens (55:47)
Yeah. That's turned around real quickly though, just so we're clear. I live in Marvis. I live in Marvista, so I like touch Venice and Santa Monica. That turned around real quick. really? wow, yeah.

Ella Parlor (56:01)
I was staying. I have friends in V Mar Vista. I'm from Orange County, but yeah. So next time I'm out there, I'll have to let you know. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (56:04)
I love it. okay. awesome. Yeah, that'd be great, yeah.

Ella Parlor (56:08)
We could walk over.

Kate Jerkens (56:09)
That's great.

Jessie Ott (56:10)
Yeah, wow. The small world.

Kate Jerkens (56:12)
It is.

Caitlyn LuBell (56:12)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (56:12)
Beverage.

Kate Jerkens (56:13)
That

Jessie Ott (56:14)
Beverage.

It's fun. Any any other thoughts anybody wants to share or any questions you want to ask?

Caitlyn LuBell (56:20)
I don't know. I just think that it's pretty interesting time in our industry. And I'm I'm in a way I'm very excited to see what's gonna evolve and how things how things are gonna evolve, I should say, and what's gonna happen. I mean, obviously heartbreaking to see people losing their jobs and and you know, I see a lot of people recovering and getting jobs elsewhere and things like that, but I think I think that

Everything is blending right now and it's pretty interesting. And the consumer is forcing that a little bit, right? By what they're drinking. And then everybody's jumping on the bandwagon. And so I don't know. I just between the three-tier system, Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall, if you ask me. And

Kate Jerkens (57:03)
Ha ha.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:03)
and then like the blend of what people are drinking now and you know, canned wine. God, I remember when Ste. Michelle came out with 14 hands canned wine. And we were like, we're not selling this.

Ella Parlor (57:13)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:14)
No.

But I refused. I absolutely refuse. And guess what? It's all like crazy. Everybody wanted it. And we were like, okay, listen, I

Kate Jerkens (57:22)
Here we go.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:23)
I'll never forget Freddie Freddie Noe at my first like big like GSM at nine o'clock in the morning, drinking Booker's, Baker's, Basil, and Knob and and him talking about his mother and how she drank Basil Hayden and she mixed it with ginger ale. And somebody raised their hand and was like,

Isn't that like sacrilege? And he goes, I don't care what you're doing with it as long as you're drinking it. And I

Jessie Ott (57:48)
Mm-hmm.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:49)
say that in my head all the time. I'm like, you know what? If they want to drink a canned wine or they wanna make a spritz or they wanna drink,

Kate Jerkens (57:55)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (57:55)
you know, a spirit but have it in a can mixed with other stuff, like, you know, hey, they're drinking it. So yeah.

Kate Jerkens (58:01)
Have at it. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (58:03)
So I

Jessie Ott (58:03)
Jimmy

Russell would tell me he signed a few bottles 'cause I worked with him a few times. He'd sign my bottle and he and he'd say, Don't not open this. I didn't make it for you not to drink it. I haven't opened it.

Caitlyn LuBell (58:14)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think people are drinking. They're just being making smarter and different choices. but

Jessie Ott (58:23)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (58:24)
but they're still enjoying and they're still, you know, I think our industry is in a weird place right now, but gonna continue to be in an okay place and different and it's gonna look very different. But I don't know, sometimes change is good, right?

Jessie Ott (58:39)
Yeah. I think overall it's good for the health of our communities and our societies. I mean, you know, maybe s stepping in and having a non-alcoholic beverage in in between or whatever, or take a break or whatever it might be is is not it's not a bad thing. It's just a different thing and it just changed the trajectory of people's careers, you know, that you know, and structures obviously of companies and companies are gone. So

You know, those ones that

Caitlyn LuBell (59:05)
I

Jessie Ott (59:05)
diversified like res are the ones that are coming out on top. And so I think that's definitely a cautionary tale of how you

Kate Jerkens (59:12)
Sure.

Jessie Ott (59:12)
build businesses in the future. And I don't think it's just an alcohol situation anymore. I think it's more diversified than that.

Kate Jerkens (59:18)
Yeah, greed.

Agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (59:20)
Yeah,

very true.

Ella Parlor (59:21)
would also say that to keep in mind when we panic about the

loss that we talk about a lot is that's all public data, but we've seen more private companies come into our space in the last ten years and that data isn't as readily available. So try to

Jessie Ott (59:36)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (59:36)
I always try to remind people like try to keep in mind that it might be a reconsolidation of, yeah, perhaps Diageo lost a lot of share, but maybe that went to more local businesses and brands. And is that such a terrible thing? I think looking at

Kate Jerkens (59:48)
Right. Good point.

Ella Parlor (59:49)
remembering that the data is really focused on those public organizations and doesn't always prioritize those smaller

private brands that I get to work with, but

Jessie Ott (59:57)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (59:57)
there's a lot of opportunity

Caitlyn LuBell (59:58)
I agree.

Ella Parlor (59:58)
for for for those smaller challenger brands.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:00:02)
I agree. And also states like New York, that's you know, we we don't use Nielsen and IRI. There is no data. So you

Kate Jerkens (1:00:07)
There is no data. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:00:10)
can't you you it doesn't cover all the US. We used to say that all the time. We're like it it's it's not it doesn't include us. It doesn't include New York and the independent markets, like none of this data includes any of that. Exactly.

Kate Jerkens (1:00:21)
Yeah, the big piece of the pie too, New York.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:00:25)
So you know it

No disrespect to the data that's available, but I agree with you a hundred percent that's not all that it really is. That's not the be all end all, right?

Jessie Ott (1:00:34)
Well speaking of data, I I found out yesterday that the data that I've been paying for, which is four four military markets and the general

Ella Parlor (1:00:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (1:00:45)
out you know, US numbers, multi outlet, Circana is no longer supplying

Kate Jerkens (1:00:50)
Oof.

Jessie Ott (1:00:51)
military data. So I'm left with no business to the military. So it's really frustrating. So I say all that to see

If you guys have any opinions on other markets that that are important that like Ella, what are your clients needing that I could help maybe provide? Like is it California, is it Texas? Is it is it Florida? Like, you know?

Ella Parlor (1:01:11)
wa I wanna go back to what you said about the military commissaries 'cause I didn't hear about this. So Nielsen NIQ is pulling out. D is that what you're saying?

Jessie Ott (1:01:19)
I don't know

about Nielsen, I only know Circana's

Kate Jerkens (1:01:21)
No, yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:01:21)
no longer giving it to FinTech who I buy their data from. And I just I

Ella Parlor (1:01:22)
no. Okay.

Jessie Ott (1:01:25)
just paid a whole bunch thousands of dollars to have it cleaned. So now I'm like

Kate Jerkens (1:01:29)
That's frustrating.

Wow.

Ella Parlor (1:01:31)
But

did it move somewhere? I just find that so s I'm like that's really strange.

Jessie Ott (1:01:35)
I

I don't know if it's a if it's a Fintech Circana situation or if the military just pulled out a circana and said we're just only going with Nielsen. I d I don't know. I just I'll

Ella Parlor (1:01:45)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:01:45)
find out. I have a call of them today.

Kate Jerkens (1:01:46)
Yeah, we get all of our military

data through Nielsen, so hopefully that doesn't yeah. Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:01:49)
Yeah, that's and I missed that too when you said Circana. I

I I we get it through Nielsen as well. I

Jessie Ott (1:01:54)
okay.

Ella Parlor (1:01:55)
would say from a market need perspective right now, from a data pers from a data perspective, right, Jessie? on premise is a hot topic. So depending on the market and the segment, the numbers are

I again, from a trust perspective, categorically, they're all over the place. I see tremendous growth in certain segments for on-premise.

And I'm talking outside of FIFA, like pre even pre-FIFA looking at on-premise this year has been so hard. are we looking at year over year? Are we looking at the last 10 years? I think on premise data at the independent level, even at the chain level, but just on premise data is so unclear. Pricing mix within the on-premise also very inconsistent.

So I I think that's where we need a lot more data. And what I'm starting to reposition right now is independent

Caitlyn LuBell (1:02:40)
Okay.

Ella Parlor (1:02:41)
chains. brought up HEB earlier. It's kind of an unfair one because we know that they're incredible. But we're seeing a lot

Jessie Ott (1:02:48)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:02:48)
more regional chains again on the note of

the fragmentation of the big guys, we're just seeing a lot more business go regional. So getting that under getting the retailers to understand the importance of let opting in for data and and why sharing their data is best for the ecosystem. That's something that we're trying to unlock right now with the independent chains. so those local, like when you call them Jerry's Liquor, those guys,

Caitlyn LuBell (1:03:09)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:03:13)
those are my guys. I'm trying to get the Jerry's Liquors, like those, you know,

fifteen to thirty store, you know, maybe ten to thirty store range, to to figure out how can we get more accurate data that helps them as well.

Jessie Ott (1:03:25)
that's interesting. Yeah. On premise data. do you remember Guest Metrics back in the day?

Caitlyn LuBell (1:03:30)
gosh, yeah, but barely, but I do remember that. But that was

Jessie Ott (1:03:34)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:03:35)
a long time ago.

Jessie Ott (1:03:36)
A long time ago, but I'm working with that team now

Kate Jerkens (1:03:39)
What is that?

Jessie Ott (1:03:40)
Guest Metrics was Brian Barrett. He he ended up getting point of sale data from restaurants

Caitlyn LuBell (1:03:46)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:03:46)
and so he kinda cornered that on premise market. And then I'm not I'm not I'm a little fuzzy on the details. He sold it and they kind of pushed it to the side or something. I can't remember exactly what they it was it was kind of a sad deal.

but anyway, the two ladies that our sisters that used to work with them and they created a system to help clean data and the data is so messy, it's they've been cleaning it since March.

Kate Jerkens (1:04:11)
Wow.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:04:11)
I know some of the salespeople

Jessie Ott (1:04:12)
It's just

Caitlyn LuBell (1:04:13)
use GoSpotCheck and they're like constantly, that's what they're doing. Like, you know, unfortunately, instead of selling, they're going into their on-premise accounts and they're doing GoSpotCheck surveys to see who has Tito's and who has Perno and things like that. but again, that's for the larger brands too. That's what they're focusing

Jessie Ott (1:04:30)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:04:31)
on, you know, and it doesn't give you all that.

Data for on-prem at all at being again, you know, from the New York market, being a salesperson, feet on the street. And, you know, I'm working for a national company, and everybody has all these statistics and numbers,

Kate Jerkens (1:04:45)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:04:46)
and we have nothing. And they're, you know, we're like, we have no statistics. So we're out there trying to do surveys off of wine lists and cocktail menus

Jessie Ott (1:04:56)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:04:56)
and stuff, but that's relying on human entry.

And also I'm busy. I'm trying to do a million other things. I don't really have time to sit down with a 350 bottle wine list at a steakhouse and do a survey, right? So

Kate Jerkens (1:05:10)
Right.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:05:10)
it's really hard to capture that information, but thousand percent. I mean, the POS systems that that could so easily capture the information that's needed. So I don't know why that's not more prevalent. I mean, that's the way to capture it, is not having your salespeople going around.

doing GoSpotChecks, but like let the computer system capture as they're entering in the bottle of wine or the cocktail.

Kate Jerkens (1:05:34)
But it's just not that accurate, right? So like for instance, Uncle Nearest, like

we'll get on a cocktail menu and like or get on a back bar and I'll go to like order a cocktail for support or whatever and I get the bill and it doesn't even say Uncle Neeris on it says another brand because they've never built it into their POS. And I'm like, I can't really like give this to like my CFO and be like, hey you know, so I think there's a l yeah, open liquor.

Ella Parlor (1:05:55)
Open. I get that I I have so many

Caitlyn LuBell (1:05:58)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:05:58)
receipts. Open whiskey. I'm like, well,

Caitlyn LuBell (1:06:00)
yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:06:01)
o okay. Like

Kate Jerkens (1:06:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

that takes me back to my hotel

Caitlyn LuBell (1:06:03)
Yes, I just

Kate Jerkens (1:06:04)
days of like the you know, our our customers be like, I can't turn this in. It says open something, what does that mean? You know?

Jessie Ott (1:06:10)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (1:06:11)
but yeah, I mean I just think that the POS systems are such a menus change, things change so much, I don't think that they're super accurate is the problem.

Ella Parlor (1:06:18)
I was able to build

Caitlyn LuBell (1:06:19)
That's what we need.

Ella Parlor (1:06:20)
I built an inventory in AI. I'm I'm very we didn't talk about AI, which is shocking and I'm grateful for it 'cause it's like the one conversation of the day. I haven't had that be about that, but I did build I like to build perfect. I I like to build

Jessie Ott (1:06:29)
I live in it. So we could talk about it all day long.

Ella Parlor (1:06:34)
agents and and test things out, but I did build a

For one of my partners, I built a GPT on OpenAI that basically just converts photos into inventory. So the idea is that it can just the AI can scan it. It's not that hard to know the metrics of a 750 bottle. It's

Kate Jerkens (1:06:51)
Interesting.

Ella Parlor (1:06:52)
not that hard for it to measure. and so from an inventory standpoint, I would venture to guess within the next 18 months, like the manual entry, it'll just be photos where you're just taking a photo of your iPad and it's capturing the

Kate Jerkens (1:07:02)
That makes sense.

Ella Parlor (1:07:03)
labels, it's capturing the SKUs.

And now with UPCs, which is something that I worked with 10 years ago at Diage. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:07:08)
That's what I was just gonna say, like what you should be able to just scan the UPC and it goes right into your POS system. That would make so much sense.

Ella Parlor (1:07:15)
already they have that because I built I worked with the a team that was building that for menu surveys 10 years ago or however long ago at Perno. So I know that that, but the that requires Caitlin that you're still picking up the bottle and scanning the UPC, right? So this would

Kate Jerkens (1:07:29)
Right. Still a little bit of work, yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:07:30)
be a full back bar screen, you know, screen grab.

That then can

Caitlyn LuBell (1:07:34)
Wow.

Ella Parlor (1:07:35)
triangulate from the menu, whatever data is available to then create, you know, more I think we will see AI very much start to be a part of the sales conversations of these burdensome tasks that just don't make sense to be doing with manual entry anymore. so

Kate Jerkens (1:07:50)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:07:51)
I'm wildly excited about everything that I get to customize and white label for my clients right now. But AI has become like my full focus of of my

Of my work within the beverage space at

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:03)
But that's a good use of AI, right?

Kate Jerkens (1:08:04)
Interesting.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:05)
Because

Jessie Ott (1:08:05)
Mm.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:05)
that's not taking jobs, that's helping people do their jobs faster, better, and more efficiently.

Ella Parlor (1:08:10)
Awesome so far.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:11)
And, you know, that's the thing with automated systems and digital systems and AI and all that. It's like if you're using in the right way to enhance people's jobs and make them faster, easier, better. little plug for my new company. but no, but seriously, I mean, that's that's the

proper use of it, right? And that's where it's actually going to help the the our industry too. So I love that. That is that's awesome. And I'm a I'm not an AI girl at all, but I absolutely love that. God, I remember doing inventory and holding up the bottle and you

Ella Parlor (1:08:43)
Ha ha ha.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:44)
know, trying to see through the label of, you know, all those things.

Jessie Ott (1:08:48)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:08:49)
If there was an AI version or something that just threw all that, holy moly, that would be amazing.

Ella Parlor (1:08:54)
Yeah, worked I was like talking, I had a meeting today and someone was like, That might not be DOJ compliant and I was like, Damn, 'cause I'm trying to I was trying to figure out a way and I think I can do it, to reverse engineer price to retailer by scanning menus. That was like the next thing I was working on. They're like, the DOJ's probably not gonna allow that one because that becomes proprietary information, right? But we always want that data of like what is someone else paying for this placement that I also have at this exact bar.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:09:23)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Jerkens (1:09:24)
Alright.

Ella Parlor (1:09:24)
and being able to try I mean again AI is gonna be able to do that with all these the menus are gonna be data now. I mean that's what it really really is. It's no

Kate Jerkens (1:09:31)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:09:32)
longer just

Jessie Ott (1:09:32)
Mm.

Ella Parlor (1:09:32)
a menu. It's it's proof of price point, it's proof of placement. and so between all the menu, Yelp, Instagram, you know, all the menus online, I just I think we'll see a lot of changes in the next 18 months, which I'm very excited about.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:09:46)
Me too. I'm optimistic

Jessie Ott (1:09:48)
Yeah, agreed.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:09:49)
for the second half of the year here. So I I don't know, maybe I'm just the silver lining girl, but I'm like,

Jessie Ott (1:09:56)
Ha

Caitlyn LuBell (1:09:57)
I feel like this major, so many major shifts in our industry. But like I said, I I think some of them are gonna be a good thing and and really help the industry in the long run. So I'm pretty excited to watch. And you ladies keep going with yours.

Dillard side, that's amazing.

Jessie Ott (1:10:16)
Yeah,

Ella, I have to show you my platform sometime because I think there could be some nice synergies.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:10:22)
yeah, so

Jessie Ott (1:10:23)
on top of

Ella Parlor (1:10:23)
Let me. I would love to play with it.

Jessie Ott (1:10:25)
okay. And on top of that I'm building I'm building a system that can

look at what accounts we should be in in this city versus this city, And so you're gonna be able to really fine tune and help people get a list of accounts of where they should spend their time.

And kind of a go-to-market strategy. So

Ella Parlor (1:10:46)
Yeah. My

answer is convenience store for anyone who's asking. Go to your local

Kate Jerkens (1:10:50)
Ha ha.

Ella Parlor (1:10:50)
convenience store. There's a lot of opportunity there. You just gotta

Caitlyn LuBell (1:10:53)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:10:54)
go to your Loves.

Jessie Ott (1:10:55)
Loves Buc-ees

Caitlyn LuBell (1:10:55)
Yeah,

Kate Jerkens (1:10:56)
I need to go find some Loves.

Jessie Ott (1:10:59)
Yeah, they're all they're all over Florida, all the way through I 10 and up to Dallas.

Ella Parlor (1:11:05)
Kate, the 7-11 headquarters is here in Dallas, but fun fact,

Kate Jerkens (1:11:08)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:11:08)
we don't have 7-11, just the headquarters. Like the like it's so odd.

Kate Jerkens (1:11:12)
Only in your airports.

Ella Parlor (1:11:14)
It's like I mean, we we do. We have like one city.

Jessie Ott (1:11:16)
We do.

Ella Parlor (1:11:17)
I mean, yeah, I'm being hyperbolic, but compared to SoCal where you get it on every single corner, no. Nothing like that.

Kate Jerkens (1:11:17)
Yeah. got it. Yeah. I'm also obsessed with the 7-11.

I think seven I think like convenience stores are for me the most fun. Like I we joke about it. Like I just love I could like sti spend all day just walking around them. I think they're fascinating. And the things that

Jessie Ott (1:11:33)
Yeah. That's great.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:11:34)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (1:11:35)
they're carrying in these stores now is really interesting. Like some of the seven eleven's are really nice. Some of them have liquor licenses now and are carrying like really like nice liquor. Where I used to like, I would never, but like

Nice liquor. It's been it's it's interesting. And it's also a lot less

expensive for fountain soda than at McDonald's just as an FYI too, if you need a Diet Coke.

Jessie Ott (1:11:54)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:11:55)
In in Denver,

they're actually danger zones. They're not selling booze in them. Well, they sell like beer, probably

Kate Jerkens (1:12:02)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:02)
or TDs of some sort, but they're danger zones. They're just unfortunately a mecca for you know cr yep, homeless and and a lot of

Kate Jerkens (1:12:11)
Yeah. It sort of depends

it's neighborhood by neighborhood here. It's really interesting. One of Yeah. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:14)
But in New York they're they're great. They're beautiful and we love them and we pull up and they're

huge and you go in. They still don't have booze in New York, but they're like the best. We love our 7-11. But here they're

Kate Jerkens (1:12:22)
Yeah, yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:26)
they're not so great.

Kate Jerkens (1:12:27)
So in San Diego,

Jessie Ott (1:12:28)
Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (1:12:28)
one of the seven elevens in San Diego, at night they play like opera music extremely loud outside of the store to keep people from sleeping in

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:35)
Well you talked about that.

Kate Jerkens (1:12:37)
front of to keep them people from sleeping in front of the store. So that's become a new thing. It's like loud music outside of the stores to keep people from falling asleep. It's really fun.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:43)
Surprised they're not doing that here. Are they they're franchised

Jessie Ott (1:12:45)
Interesting.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:48)
though, right? Is that why? Are they franchised? They are. man, that would be great

Ella Parlor (1:12:49)
Mm-hmm. They're franchised. They franchised, yeah. They're very franchised.

Kate Jerkens (1:12:49)
I think they are, yeah. Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:53)
for here. It really needs it. It's

Kate Jerkens (1:12:53)
Yeah, it's pretty funny.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:12:55)
it's you walk around the block and not past the 7-Eleven here, which is really disappointing.

I

Jessie Ott (1:13:00)
Mm.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:01)
know, I love Sev and I got one like when you

Jessie Ott (1:13:03)
I love

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:03)
block away. And I'm like,

Jessie Ott (1:13:05)
my five cents per gallon savings as a member.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:09)
I just love

Kate Jerkens (1:13:09)
see that's

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:10)
that

Kate Jerkens (1:13:10)
interesting.

There's not a lot of here that are gas stations. Most of are just convenience. Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:13:13)
I was gonna say on Surpees or gas, 'cause I was thinking Slurpees.

Five cents a

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:17)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:13:17)
gallon. No, no, no, I'm making that up. That's not a real thing.

Jessie Ott (1:13:18)
I've never seen one of those. I've only seen gas.

Kate Jerkens (1:13:20)
inch it's like a standal so these are

like standalone here. Yeah. And right now a big

Jessie Ott (1:13:24)
Really? Interesting.

Kate Jerkens (1:13:27)
a big gulp at 7 eleven is like 59 cents or something ridiculous, you guys. It's so great. Yeah. Come on.

Jessie Ott (1:13:33)
Wow.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:34)
Ha ha ha.

Jessie Ott (1:13:35)
It

probably depends upon when Seven Eleven was growing what back in the seventies, eighties, whatever it was. It probably depended on what chain they bought. And they probably just didn't

Kate Jerkens (1:13:46)
Interesting.

Jessie Ott (1:13:47)
they may have just kind of evolved like that in that in that sense.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:13:50)
True.

Kate Jerkens (1:13:51)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:13:52)
because

Ella Parlor (1:13:52)
Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (1:13:52)
they ended up getting over leveraged in the mid eighties and 7-11 actually bailed them out because they were called Southland Company.

Kate Jerkens (1:13:59)
Hmm.

Jessie Ott (1:13:59)
I only know that because I was gonna buy a building in Oak Cliff in in Dallas area and it was old ice house and it there's like this cool little building where people would pull up their buggies and they'd get ice and they'd get milk and they'd get bread and they get yeah. So I studied quite a bit on it. and then

Ella Parlor (1:14:16)
Love that. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:14:18)
the Japanese basically because inflation was really bad in the eighties, right?

And they were over leveraged and so 7-11 came in and and bought them.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:14:26)
Interesting.

Ella Parlor (1:14:27)
Yeah, 7-11 I just I'm surprised being the HQ, we don't have as many as I feel we should, is all I'm saying. I think

Kate Jerkens (1:14:32)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:14:33)
I've been to one 7-11.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:14:33)
Yeah not.

Ella Parlor (1:14:34)
Actually, I was in a 7-11 that got robbed. On the note of 7-11 and sea stores, take care of your 7-11 employees. Take care of

Kate Jerkens (1:14:41)
Take care of your people.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:14:42)
Yeah, really.

Ella Parlor (1:14:43)
People because they're putting their life on the line every day to sell your beverages.

Jessie Ott (1:14:45)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:14:46)
And this guy

Kate Jerkens (1:14:46)
Absolutely.

Ella Parlor (1:14:47)
came to rob and the cashier got on top. This is my first introduction to Dallas, by the way. Got on top and said, You're gonna rob me? You're gonna rob and try to jump at the guy with the gun trying to rob

Caitlyn LuBell (1:14:57)
Okay.

Ella Parlor (1:14:58)
him. I was like, Where did I move? Talk about Caitlin crime. I'm like, and this was a nice one by the AAC, the American Airline Center. I'm like,

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:06)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:15:06)
What the heck is this? That is that I said to

Jessie Ott (1:15:07)
Ha

Ella Parlor (1:15:09)
him, I said, Sir, you should not be fighting people who try to rob you.

with a gun. and he goes he

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:14)
There it is.

Jessie Ott (1:15:14)
Let do it.

Ella Parlor (1:15:15)
goes, I knew who that guy was. He's already robbed every one of my cousins. That's what he said. And I was like, okay. Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:20)
gosh. I

Jessie Ott (1:15:20)
yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:21)
feel so bad for the employees when I do pop in there. I'm always feel so bad for them because it's so dangerous. I mean, especially

Kate Jerkens (1:15:28)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:28)
at night, a lot of them close earlier here because because they're so dangerous, especially on the weekends, they'll just close. They're like, nope, we're not, we're not messing

Ella Parlor (1:15:37)
Hate here.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:38)
with that. I know it's really sad. But but it is a good chain. I grew up with sevs. Yeah.

Kate Jerkens (1:15:44)
Yeah, the vest. The

vest.

Ella Parlor (1:15:47)
C store's on my

Jessie Ott (1:15:47)
Right.

Ella Parlor (1:15:48)
place. So if you need help with C

Kate Jerkens (1:15:49)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:15:49)
Store and you want you don't want to go into a C Store, I'll go in for you. It's it's fun. I can handle

Caitlyn LuBell (1:15:53)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:15:54)
it. I'm a big girl. Thank you, ladies, so much

Jessie Ott (1:15:57)
I love that.

Ella Parlor (1:15:57)
for this. This was a really fun call. I really, really, really enjoyed this podcast with you.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:03)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:16:03)
Yay, good. So

Kate Jerkens (1:16:03)
Me too.

Jessie Ott (1:16:04)
you'll come back?

Ella Parlor (1:16:05)
Yeah, absolutely.

Kate Jerkens (1:16:07)
Yay.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:07)
We love we love doing

Jessie Ott (1:16:07)
Okay.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:08)
these. They're so much fun. And and we are all from such different perspectives too of the industry, which is really cool. So we, you know, we all see different sides to the puzzle. And so it's interesting. It's always interesting to talk to these amazing

Ella Parlor (1:16:22)
Yeah.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:23)
ladies.

Ella Parlor (1:16:23)
It's like we're the four corners

Jessie Ott (1:16:24)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:16:25)
of the US.

Kate Jerkens (1:16:25)
This was fun.

Ella Parlor (1:16:26)
I'm counting Caitlyn

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:26)
Yeah.

Ella Parlor (1:16:28)
I'm counting you as New York and Jessie, I'm counting you Florida.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:30)
I don't. Yeah. Always count me as New York.

Jessie Ott (1:16:31)
Ha

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:34)
I'm a transplant.

Ella Parlor (1:16:35)
Ha ha

Jessie Ott (1:16:36)
Very cool. All right, ladies. Well this is always fun.

Caitlyn LuBell (1:16:40)
Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:16:40)
I'll just let's we'll say goodbye and I'll stop recording. All right.

Kate Jerkens (1:16:44)
Alright, thanks guys. Appreciate it. Nice to meet you, Ella.

Ella Parlor (1:16:47)
Thank you.