Brewbound Pitch Slam 13 Finals - G's Hard Ginger Beer

Ray Latif [00:11] Welcome to the final round of Brewbound's Pitch Slam 13 competition. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Bevnet's Taste Radio podcast and the host of the Pitch Slam. This is the final round, as I mentioned, which once again is a, uh, one-of a-kind business pitch competition. It gives entrepreneurs behind the beer industry's next breakout brands an opportunity to sample their innovative products and showcase their business plans to our expert panel of judges. 6 brands from our semi-final round held yesterday have moved on to today's final round. Here are the rules. Today's contestants will have a whopping 4 minutes to deliver their pitches. If they attempt to go over their 4 minutes, they'll hear the dreaded gong. No one wants to hear that. Uh, our judges will also have 4 minutes to ask questions and provide feedback. They have already sampled all the contestants' products. At the end of the competition, the entrepreneur with the best overall pitch and product will receive a $10,000 industry awareness package from Brewbound. The winning entrepreneurs will also receive a free entry into the 2022 Brewbound Live conference. Let's meet or remeet our judges. First up is Ryan Lake, who's a principal at Arlington Capital Advisors. Ryan has over 20 years of investment banking and commercial banking experience and has sourced, structured, and negotiated debt and equity transactions for beverage and restaurant companies. Up next is Molica Montero, who is the executive vice president and chief growth strategy and digital officer for Constellation Brands. In her role, Molica is responsible for consumer and category insights, innovation, and new product development across beer, wine, and spirits, and the company's strategy, development, and business transformation functions. Next we have Laura Markstein, who is the president of Markstein Sales Company, a 4th generation woman owned and operated wholesale beverage distributor based in Antioch, California. Markstein is now in its 102nd year of business and distributes over 4 million cases annually to 2000 retailers in the Bay Area. And of course we have Veronica Vega, who is the director of product development for Deschutes Brewery, where she oversees new innovations, their pilot brewery and barrel program. All right. All that being said, it's time to hear our first pitch for the final round of round of pitch slam 13, and that is Donna Katz from G's Hard Ginger Beer. Donna?

Donna Katz [02:49] G'day. My name is Donna, and I'm the founder of Gee's Dry Hajii Beer in San Francisco Bay Area. I moved to Napa Valley in 2013, began dry farming a small block of grape vines organically, by hand, and making restrained style wine. I started fermenting ginger for my own gut health, incorporating foraged and seasonal ingredients. Quickly came to realize I was making beverages I couldn't buy. Ones that had no added sugar, craft with only real ingredients, and that just made me smile. Then the Aussie in me was like, well why isn't there any alcohol in this tasty beverage? With superfood having proven ginger benefits and consumers wanting cleaner alcohol options to support their active and healthier lifestyles, I saw a problem, found a solution, and totally rolled up my sleeves. First to market in 2018, with a new category of ginger-based beverages, G's shelf stable brews combined fruits, flowers, citruss, botanicals, and spices that are absurdly aromatic, tasty and refreshing, and they keep you feeling great with none of the sugar highs and lows, cos we ferment to bone dry and don't add any sugar or artificial sweeteners. So why now, and what do we know about the US beverage alcohol consumer? What we know is that approximately 70% of men and only 30% of women drink beer. They're not shocking stats. But what that really means is that 50% of the adult drinkers in this country do not drink beer, and they've been itching for alternatives, especially women. Mostly, we all just wanna fit in at every occasion. Jeez is beyond beer. Ready to drink? Ready to mix, ready to pair, superb stand-alone and food friendly, or the ultimate aromatic and clean canvas for any cocktail, and if you're anything like me, both. Mostly, we all just wanna fit in, like I said. Fun fact about ginger, it ranks 3rd as the most ginger beer, I should say, it ranks 3rd as the most popular cocktail mixer in the United States. So where is Jeez at? As a one gal band, I humbly take pride in having built these solid relationships to date. And our quality beverages are speaking for themselves, our traction compelling, our velocity is growing. Consumers agree, unsolicited media agrees, and industry buyers see it too. In the words of our target buyer, G's G's represents a new category. It's what consumers will want next, it's specialty 2.0. More and more eyes are pointing to the specialty category, and just like big wine opened the door to crafted wines and big beer to craft beer, so too is big specialty, and now we're seeing a keen shift to craft specialty. Wellness is a hot commodity, and Jesus positioned in the fastest growing RTD category. We're awakening the $1.6 billion sleepy household category of ginger beer, and doing it in a cleaner and better for our planet way. Cos quality ingredients matter, transparency and sustainability matters, regenerative farming and farm workers matter, and our next generation matters. So is this a scalable model? It sure is. Ginger has gone from exotic to mainstream and proudly holds its place in many ingredients in non-alcoholic as well as beverage alcohol brands. Just think about what you buy. We've got our eyes on thoughtful growth, and the other half of that equation is supply chain. Demand for ginger, as well as supply, both imports and processing, are seeing compounding year on year growth, which is really the best of both worlds. And our other ingredients are appealing, accessible and available, making scalability possible and real. And in today's supply chain constrained environment, that's especially important. We would love to find strategic partnership. This brand has a lot to learn. I have a lot to learn, but we also have a lot to offer. I'm a big believer it's not about who gets a bigger slice of the pie, it's about how we all make our pie bigger, and we can. Winning this competition would be, would positively change this branch trajectory, and I'm even more energized thinking about what lies ahead and building a culture where everyone, everyone's pies get bigger, and we work, play, and feel great about ourselves, and personally and professionally. The horizon ahead for Gs is pretty. We're building something that's got spirit, tenacity.

Ray Latif [06:57] Well done. Please stay on the stage. The judges may have some questions for you. Outstanding. Well done. We can slide a little bit closer. They're not gonna bite. I hope not anyway. Uh, fantastic stuff. Um, Laura, obviously we didn't hear from you yesterday. Um, we'd love to hear your initial thoughts, you know, and, uh, Donna talked about seeing a problem and creating a solution through jeez, uh, not necessarily a problem, but do you see an opportunity for ginger beer to be a big category in the United States?

Speaker 3 [07:25] Can you hear me? OK, good um actually I loved your product um I thought it had super clean ingredients um all the attributes were well designed on the can, um, and it may just be my older eyes that had a little, uh, difficulty reading the ingredients, um, so that would just be a suggestion. Um, but I think that there's a great opportunity because of the attributes and the, the clean ingredients. Um, I think there's a place for your, your product, for your brand. Love it.

Ray Latif [07:58] Molica, we heard more about scaling from Donna today. Um, what do you think about the scaling strategy that she outlined for Gs?

Speaker 4 [08:04] I think it's really smart. The question I have, uh, you know, Donna, you, you tell such a compelling story. You bring so much energy to what you're building, and it is first to market. The, the all of the attributes, I think connect with consumers. We heard a lot today about the better for you space and. How important that is. My question for you is how beyond package and beyond that great billboard effect you showed in your images, how are you telling that story to consumers and bringing them into the brand, knowing that this is on the slightly different track of what's happening in, in, uh, alternative adult beverages?

Donna Katz [08:37] Yeah, it's a good question and it's still very much a work in progress, um. I am the entire complement of Team G's. So it's, uh, you know, working now on what building a team, building a culture looks like and answering those questions or discovering more around those people and the occasions that these that these people wanna drink it out and we do want all fit in and, and I feel like, you know, a lot of places you go, you see 22 tap handles. And one is allocated to Beyond Beer. And, you know, 50% of the people that walk through that door are Beyond beer. So, uh, potentially more than 50% because it's not saying that the people that drink beer won't drink something else as well. And so I think some of the education is coming through the broader category as well, and we plan, you know, I plan on wanting to, you know, try and find more of that, hone in more on that message and, Um, and, and look also vision longer-term of Beyond Dry hard ginger beer, what this lifestyle brand could offer to continue to speak to people that are looking for, um, you know, something that speaks to them.

Ray Latif [09:34] Great, thank you. Ryan, um, you know, we heard Donna talk about aligning with strategics and, you know, given the foundation that we've seen over the last couple of days, um, you know, do you see strategic as looking for a brand like Geez, uh, today and in the future?

Speaker 5 [09:48] Yeah, I could. I mean, I think strategists are always looking for something that's new, something disruptive, something that gives them uh an interest in a new category or something that it breaks through in a category that's already established. Um, I think, you know, it's, it's the little pieces of proving out, uh, you know, velocity in certain key chains, key regions, you know, figuring out where this goes on the shelf, where you get the benefit of the velocity of a hard seltzer or a beer, but you're differentiated, um, and not getting yourself relegated to the part of the store where the velocity is gonna be more like a traditional non-alcoholic ginger beer.

Ray Latif [10:19] Um, Veronica, we, we also saw a lot more retailers on a slide today as well, which, um, you know, it sounds like the, the concept is proving itself out, um, but I wonder, I mean, is that something you look at and say, OK, yes, they've got this good base from which to build on, or is it just they need to keep growing in different retailers to, to really stand out at this point?

Speaker 6 [10:40] Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering since it is retail driven how you will incorporate consumer feedback on flavor and your future flavor development, um, because it, you know, it is, we've heard from others today, you have 6 months on the shelf to prove whether something working or not and so you stuff has to happen in the background. Um, in order to get that feedback and get that confidence to that retailer that no, I've done the work to, you know, um, get consumers and get their feedback on flavor, so I'm curious, um, what your plan is there.

Donna Katz [11:15] Yeah, again comes back to building a, a team of, of, you know, with people that can focus on some of those things as well, and I see that as imperative, you know, I've been working on, you know, the foundations of, of product and brand and, and getting into the locations that we've been at right now and looking now to bring on a, a salesperson that can, Help to drive more of, of, of the demand side of the equation, as well as some support in the, you know, marketing slash branding world that can really look into some of the data and analysis and help us to, to, you know, to funnel to this place of being able to communicate, being able to talk, being able to connect more with those consumers.

Ray Latif [11:54] Great stuff. All right, great start to the show. Thanks so much.