Brewbound Pitch Slam 14: Finals - High Seas Mead

Speaker 1 [00:24] OK. Up next, we have Austin and Ann Corrigan, who are the co-founders of High Seas Mead. Come on up. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Each of you have a microphone.

Austin Corrigan [00:38] Pardon me. Gray. That's a great way to start.

Speaker 1 [00:42] Please keep an eye on. Yes, sir.

Austin Corrigan [00:46] All right. Hello and good afternoon. My name is Austin Corrigan and I'm Ann Corrigan, and we're the founders, mead makers, delivery people of High Seas Mead in Santa Barbara, California. So, high seas mead, you might ask yourself, what, what the heck even is mead. Mead, simply put, is the process of fermenting honey. So in 2019, we created High Seas Mead as, uh, in the wake of a pretty severe car wreck that I was involved in. With time to kill while recovering and keep, you know, myself mentally sane, I started fermenting in my garage, the normal thing to do, obviously. So, I, I really wanted to drink something that felt clean, pure, and ultimately didn't hurt, you know, my healing body. Beer made my body ache. Kombucha started tasting the same, and I just, I had the idea of fermenting honey. Fast forwarding 2 years, this garage passion project is now a small, fully operational company, and we craft a, uh, a line of session style sparkling meads that, you know, that are fermented dry, leaving our meads refreshingly light, crisp, at 6.9%. The outcome is a clean, crushable, and gluten-free alternative alcohol for everyone to enjoy. It is imperative at High Seaas Meat, um, to craft the highest quality, best tasting natural product that is gluten free and a fun alternative option for our for our community, and we also hope to be the market leader in our category in the near future.

Speaker 3 [02:16] Uncompromised commitment to quality and taste is at the heart of what we do here at High Seas. We keep it simple, clean, and delicious, made with just water, honey, yeast, and real fruit. Currently our session style meads are packaged in 16 ounce cans as sold as 4 packs and individuals. Um, 4 packs retail for 21. Dollars and our suggested retail price for individual cans is $499 to 799 cents depending on your market. Our wholesale price is $85 in the near future we'll be transitioning to 12 ounce six packs for scalability and to utilize the real estate on our boxes for further brand storytelling to educate our consumer about meat. Our core four flavors are, as you see on the screen, cheap thrills, which is raspberry, coconut. Mystic Vibration, which is our watermelon Meyer lemon, uh, Son of a beach, which is our take on a Hawaiian pog, passion fruit, pineapple, orange, guava, cosmic bandido, pineapple coconut, oh sorry, Cosmic bandido, blackberry pineapple, and mitalada pineapple coconut. Um, you'll see from our can designs that we really wanted to make bright bold flavo colors. When you go into a grocery store nowadays, it's overwhelming with options, so I really wanted our cans to stand out on the shelves. We did that by using bright colors, bold logos, and illustrations of fruit and bees weaved through. Um, we also have Bandido Boy who's kind of like an Easter egg in our mascot, and he makes an appearance on every can. Um, to date in the last two years we have self-distributed to over 110 locations from Los Angeles to Pasa Robles, um, selling over $110,000 in our first year of business. Nearby we can be found in all Whole Foods Markets and we are, um, currently on boarding with Whole Foods, sorry, all, all Air One Markets, and we can currently be on boarding with, um, Whole Foods Markets and Albertson's Vaughn's Pavilions at a hyperlocal level. Um, as for opportunity in the market, we see a lot of 4th category growth, um, continue to show eagerness and openness from the consumer of new innovations, uh, with consumers demanding and always on the lookout for cleaner, better for you booze, um, we see high seas fitting right in there.

Austin Corrigan [04:20] So there's an incredible, oh sorry, so next steps in our business, we are, we're pretty excited to announce the opening of our tap room. We're dealing with the city of Santa Barbara and we should expect that to open in about 3 to 4 months. Um, we're also gonna start our first round of fundraising through friends and family which will help us kind of put together a, uh, team of individuals to help us expand. Uh, and we also are very excited to, uh, hopefully start working with the distributor to expand our footprint throughout California and share the need for me. Thank you. I.

Speaker 1 [04:56] Right, well done. Uh, Jamie, let's start with you. Um, I think yesterday was the first time you tried meat. Is that what you said? I remember you saying, um, you know, getting people to try this product is probably the most important thing. Based on what you saw today. Are you confident that Hi Seas has an opportunity to reach more people and introduce me to, uh, the community?

Speaker 4 [05:16] I think so and I love the way that you are approaching the education um I think just the storytelling of what's included the simple ingredients, it's an easy get which is gonna be a huge part of getting people into this space so I think you guys really nailed that as part of your storytelling today.

Speaker 1 [05:35] Thank you. Uh, Rich, you know, the retail is really important too, and, uh, from what we heard in the presentation, seems like the retail strategy is, uh, starting off pretty well. Um, a lot of focused on natural Ew and Whole Foods. Is that the right place? I mean, do you think that's the right strategy right now, or is a mainstream, uh, retail opportunity possible?

Speaker 5 [05:54] I mean, if you're able to support it. Um, with like consistent outreach as well, like I think it is, uh, sustainable, um, with me if, uh, people are able to meet the owners as well and like, you know, you give them like the vibe and the culture, uh, that'll help sell through at those locations so you're able to remain there and, um, just that experience of meeting the founders of the company, um, will help you be sustainable in this early, early phase. So yeah, take those accounts on.

Speaker 1 [06:21] Ryan, um, again, you know, a big part of the question, big part of the equation is, can, can this scale, and we've been hearing a lot over the last two days about sort of Beyond beer type of beverages, AAB, 4th, uh, category beverages, you know, can mead be a big part of that equation? Do you see, you know, that potential in high seas? I think it can. We were talking about education is the key. I mean, people understand what a tequila RTD is. They understand tequila and then something else is added to it. Mead requires a little more explanation. History, telling what's in it, what's not. Um, I think it can be, but it's gonna take a little more effort. Yeah, Jess, I mean, from a distribution standpoint, is this something that easily fits into a distributor's portfolio or is it, you know, it's got to be pulled from the consumer?

Speaker 6 [07:03] Oh, I think it fits in. It's just, it's merchandise just like beer would be merchandis and sold like beer. So I think that's, that's an easy fit. I think what you guys have to realize is you've got great opportunities in Araw and it sounds like Whole Foods is going to give you an opportunity and you just. Really to think of what are we gonna do to maximize this, you know, you're only two people, uh, but you're very energetic two people, um, but how many samplings and tastings can you do, um, and how can you get that messaging? So like, lean into social media, how, you know, I'm sure you're, you, you, you, you know, you were very polished in the presentation. I think I'm sure your social media is the same way, but, you know, how can you utilize that because again, you're only 2 people and you gotta scale up.

Speaker 1 [07:40] Uh, sticking with you, Jess for a sec, you know, um, we heard about switching from a pack size from 16 ounces to 12 ounces. Um, what do you think about moving to that kind of pack size?

Speaker 6 [07:49] I think that's a smart move. You gotta try to make it a little bit more affordable. 2 bucks a pack? That's a little bit steep. Um, so trying to go to the 12 ounces is, um, something you gotta look at. But now you also You're gonna be taking on distributors, so you're gonna have to figure out your, your, you know, what's best for you from a production, uh, standpoint, where do you maximize it, your cost of goods. I mean, it's great to have so many products, but it's an it's expensive product to make. So you need to make sure that your margins there and everybody else, you know, the retailer and your distributor has enough, enough space in there as well. Mhm. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 [08:21] Uh, Jamie, we have a little bit of time left. Were there any questions, uh, that you had something in the presentation that you didn't hear that you want us to know more about when it comes to high seas?

Speaker 4 [08:29] Yeah, I think one of the interesting things about this space, especially dealing with honey, is the conversation around bees and sustainability is that part of your messaging? Like is the source, um, you know, the scarcity like are any of those things part of the story that you guys are, are telling with this brand?

Austin Corrigan [08:48] So, uh, yeah, absolutely, you know, we, we are seeing, um, an, an issue with bees in, in the environment worldwide. Um, we source our honey from a family run farm in northern Brazil. I understand that is far away, um, but it is, it's a tropical honey. It really works with us, and it, the cow in the United States, a lot of the honey that is sold, unless you're getting it directly from the farmer, that's, you know, $6 a pound, whatever, which is totally not doable for us, um, you know. I guess, oh, sorry, I went off tangent there, but we, we do wanna work with, we wanna give back to the bees, uh, we wanna give back to the environment, um, we are not doing that at this time, but we really do intend to, um, you know, doing one of those 1% back type things or a percentage back or percentage of the proceeds going to APS around the world is something that is very important and I would love to do eventually.

Speaker 3 [09:41] Yeah and I think we wanna be intentional and thoughtful about who that partner is and who the nonprofit we work with is but um we definitely were really intentional in um our honey sourcing. We work with a family run farm that's multigenerational in Brazil, um, and they're exporters. It's two families that have been friends forever. The, uh, beekeepers are in Brazil and then the exporters are in Arizona, so we've actually had dinner with them and, um, they're friends of ours so we really wanted to keep that community, um. And be really intentional about like where we're sourcing that honey from.

Speaker 1 [10:12] Excellent. All right, well done. Thank

Austin Corrigan [10:14] you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.