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Retail: The Easy Part Is Getting On The Shelf | Bruce Langer
The same product does not behave the same way in two places. Langer's blood orange sparkling water is the number one seller on a supermarket shelf; on Amazon it is ginger. Their zero-sugar cola outsells the regular roughly ten to one on Amazon, and closer to 60/40 in grocery. Same brand, different winner — because browsing a fixed shelf and searching a marketplace are not the same behavior.
Bruce Langer is the president of Langer Juice, the company his father started in 1960 and which now runs more than 200 products through Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Albertsons, Bristol Farms and Amazon. Two generations, sixty-five years, and a launch-and-kill engine that has outlived several fads.
A note on the opening: Bruce's father, Nathan Langer, survived the Holocaust, came to the United States after the war, and started this company in 1960. Bruce tells it in about a minute and then moves on, which is how he wanted it. We spent the rest of the hour on the work.
This one is for operators who sell physical product — whether that is a first retail account, a better-run Amazon listing, or a Shopify catalog you have never split by channel.
In this episode:
• The signal a retailer gives long before orders drop, and why it is not the shelf
• Why his drink in the biggest new category in beverage has zero grams of protein
• How he tells a megatrend from a fad, and the 99-truckload order that taught him
• What a buyer is actually solving for in a first meeting, and why something has to come out
• Find the retailer that wants to be first, and what that is worth
• The same product, two channels, two completely different best-sellers
• What he told a founder who wanted to quietly cheapen the formula
• Why out-of-stocks cost you twice
Chapters:
00:00 One Kmart order, then the fad died
01:38 A celery juice route to a national brand
05:15 The zero-protein bet in the biggest category
09:56 The 1980s seltzer fad and 99 truckloads
11:06 Display space is the canary, not shelf space
13:53 Swapping corn syrup for cane sugar
16:41 The founder who wanted to cut the formula
18:39 Cut cost anywhere except the ingredients
19:22 What actually makes a retail buyer say yes
20:35 On a shelf, something has to come out
22:16 Budget to promote, or the shelf does nothing
23:36 Getting on the shelf is the easy part
24:31 Blood orange on the shelf, ginger on Amazon
25:27 Zero sugar outsells regular ten to one on Amazon
26:32 Running one catalog across every channel
28:09 Keeping founder taste at 400 employees
32:34 The category he thinks gets big next
Langer Juice:
https://www.langers.com/
https://www.instagram.com/langersjuice
https://www.tiktok.com/@langersjuice
Bruce on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-langer-9135004/
Ecom Growth Insider is hosted by Andrej Tuma. Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrejTuma
Running a DTC brand between $100K and $1M a month and want the profit side looked at properly, not the traffic side? https://hologrowth.com/audit
Transcript
One order for
Speaker:for Kmart, which is very different from from how it was in those days.
Speaker:And that order was 99 truckloads.
Speaker:So that was that was a lot of fun.
Speaker:But that fad ended.
Speaker:And then you just have to get out and and move on.
Speaker:It's it's impossible to overcome a declining fad.
Speaker:It just means it's time to move on.
Speaker:Today I'm talking with Bruce Langer, president of Langer's Juice.
Speaker:His father survived the Holocaust, came to America with almost nothing.
Speaker:and bought a small celery juice delivery route in San Diego.
Speaker:65 years later, Langer's is one of the biggest juice companies in the country.
Speaker:around $180 million in revenue and over 200 different products.
Speaker:In this episode, the launch and kill engine behind 65 years on the shelf.
Speaker:How to tell a megatrend from a fad before it burns you.
Speaker:their GLP-1 bet with zero grams of protein.
Speaker:And why the same product wins with one flavor
Speaker:on the shelf and a completely different flavor on Amazon.
Speaker:If you ever want your product in real stores, take notes.
Speaker:Let's get into it.
Speaker:My guest today is Bruce Langer, the president of Langer's Juice.
Speaker:He's the second generation of a brand his father started in 1960,
Speaker:and today it is one of the ten largest juice companies in the country.
Speaker:More than 200 different products, the anchor juice
Speaker:at sprouts and also in shelves at Costco,
Speaker:Walmart and Kroger and reportedly around $180 million in revenue.
Speaker:Bruce, correct me where I'm off because these are your numbers, not mine.
Speaker:All right. That's all good. Perfect.
Speaker:And the start of this is something else.
Speaker:Your father survived the Holocaust in Poland, came to this country
Speaker:with almost nothing.
Speaker:And bought a small celery juice delivery route in San Diego.
Speaker:65 years later, it's a national brand.
Speaker:And I think we could spend the whole hour just like talking there,
Speaker:and it would probably be worth it.
Speaker:But I want to use our time on something like every operator listening
Speaker:can can steal.
Speaker:So here's what I think makes this
Speaker:a super valuable topic for for this audience.
Speaker:You launch into more trends faster
Speaker:than most funded startups, and you also do it profitably.
Speaker:So whether someone listening is trying to lend their first retail account
Speaker:or they're a pure online brand deciding what to launch next.
Speaker:The discipline is the same.
Speaker:And I think the shelf is just the most honest demand signal there is.
Speaker:And today I want to get get your system for that.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Sounds good.
Speaker:So in terms of launching new new ideas, what we do is
Speaker:we look to see if there's a problem that we can solve for consumers.
Speaker:What are they looking for? Refreshment.
Speaker:Healthy ingredients that are greater than just hydration.
Speaker:So that's where we look for and where we find it is just
Speaker:thinking about it.
Speaker:I'll walk the shelves, see what's there, see
Speaker:what could be missing, could be combined with with other products,
Speaker:other ingredients, and then talking to supermarket buyers.
Speaker:And they have different names at different supermarkets.
Speaker:But could be a buyer, could be a category manager.
Speaker:And they really have the wealth of knowledge
Speaker:because they see presentations all week long.
Speaker:They they understand what people are looking for
Speaker:and they understand their customers and what what the needs are.
Speaker:And then and then, you know, a third way is, is social media
Speaker:seeing what people are talking about and, and what they're looking for.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you said before that innovation
Speaker:drove your your growth and the quality like really sustains it.
Speaker:But I assume you cannot chase like, everything.
Speaker:Like from from your perspective.
Speaker:Like how do you decide what is actually worth, like
Speaker:launching versus what is just a trend that you let that pass?
Speaker:Well, you know, again, it depends on
Speaker:on what the need is for consumers.
Speaker:And so it might be something that is already category like for example fiber.
Speaker:Fiber is already a category.
Speaker:And what we did is
Speaker:look at how we can improve that that delivery with good
Speaker:taste, the right amount of fiber, adding calcium and and magnesium.
Speaker:And we came up with our brand
Speaker:which is called No Worries GLP-1 Support Beverage.
Speaker:And it's in a 12 ounce can.
Speaker:And so this is this is what what this beverage looks like.
Speaker:And so that's just an example of our newest innovation
Speaker:where we drew upon a category
Speaker:that was already in play and
Speaker:and then attempted to improve upon it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I see a lot of brands right now chasing that Ozempic wave.
Speaker:And a lot of brands are like used protein for that.
Speaker:And you put zero grams of protein in your beverage.
Speaker:Like walk me through through that bed. Sure.
Speaker:And that doesn't mean that it's our it's our last beverage in this in this
Speaker:in this category.
Speaker:We are working on something with with both fiber and protein.
Speaker:But what we saw was because
Speaker:GLP-1s reduce muscle loss,
Speaker:that consumers were actively increasing the amount of protein that they consume.
Speaker:And with the additional protein, sometimes that's more than the body can process.
Speaker:And then the protein sits in the gut and oxidizes
Speaker:and creates bloating and discomfort.
Speaker:And so that's the problem.
Speaker:So that the solution is fiber.
Speaker:And what we found in our work
Speaker:is that chicory root fiber was
Speaker:the best fiber to push out.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:through the system they oxidized protein.
Speaker:And it's the one recommended
Speaker:as a prebiotic for this need.
Speaker:And so that's that's the course that, that we took.
Speaker:So with with your product, you're primarily not going after weight loss.
Speaker:Specifically you're going more after the experience that people have
Speaker:with with using GLP-1. And then also
Speaker:the experience that is currently maybe underserved by, by the market.
Speaker:Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Correct. Twofold.
Speaker:One is the symptoms of of consuming
Speaker:too much protein to to overcome the muscle weight loss.
Speaker:That's definitely one.
Speaker:And the other is even if someone's not on a GLP-1
Speaker:but wants to have fiber because that's an important part of the diet.
Speaker:And that works if they happen to also be on a weight loss journey,
Speaker:but not on the medication, then the the chicory
Speaker:fiber delays hunger.
Speaker:It makes you feel full longer.
Speaker:So I and I hear from many, many consumers,
Speaker:you know, on on Amazon postings, for example,
Speaker:where an afternoon of of our of our Langer’s
Speaker:No Worries GLP-1 Support beverage will allow them to delay and you know
Speaker:an afternoon snack as an example or supplement it with lunch
Speaker:and then it will carry them through longer in their day.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And how exactly did you spot that that gap or that need.
Speaker:I mean you're already briefly touched on your like research process
Speaker:and like who you talk to.
Speaker:But how how was it in that for that product specifically.
Speaker:For that product specifically we did
Speaker:see the supplier at at a supplier show,
Speaker:and they had available all the studies that that they did
Speaker:on chicory roots and,
Speaker:and the effectiveness of that,
Speaker:that fiber to, to move, move things through, through the, through the gut.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:that was just very fortunate that that we found them.
Speaker:And then we, we looked at all their research and experimented with
Speaker:the different formats that they had chicory root fiber.
Speaker:And and we have a full lab here
Speaker:with, with a great staff and developed different,
Speaker:different recipes and then found the one that tasted the best.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:And you have launched in into like many different blue zones.
Speaker:What I would say the the sleepy girl mocktail, the the GLP-1
Speaker:like nonalcoholic.
Speaker:Some of these are but I would say like Mega trends
Speaker:and some could also be fads like what is your test for a
Speaker:for a durable platform versus something that you'll regret later on?
Speaker:Well, it is very hard to know
Speaker:when you're at the beginning of a fad or into a fad a little bit.
Speaker:How long it will last that that that is, is tricky.
Speaker:And it's important to just keep an eye on things.
Speaker:So so for example, in the, in the 1980s.
Speaker:Clare flavored
Speaker:seltzers were a super big fad.
Speaker:And we jumped into that with our Fifth Avenue
Speaker:seltzers sold just a tremendous amount.
Speaker:I mean, I remember we had One order for for Kmart,
Speaker:which is very different from from how it was in those days.
Speaker:And that order was 99 truckloads.
Speaker:So that was that was a lot of fun.
Speaker:But that fad ended.
Speaker:And then you just have to get out and and move on.
Speaker:It's it's impossible to overcome a declining fad.
Speaker:It just means it's time to move on.
Speaker:And and you can't you can't get so attached to something
Speaker:when the consumer has said, okay, thank you very much.
Speaker:Now I'm going to look for something else.
Speaker:Is there a specific signal that you look out for where you say, like,
Speaker:yeah, we need to to let this go or we, we try to keep pushing.
Speaker:So I think, you know, the broader picture is velocity
Speaker:because that's something for your for your listeners, you know,
Speaker:especially ones that are going from online to brick and mortar.
Speaker:We can talk more about velocity, but you look at velocity
Speaker:and then also look at the willingness of of supermarkets
Speaker:and retailers to display items, because if they no longer
Speaker:want to allocate floor space to a display,
Speaker:then that's a signal and you really need to hear it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So as long as the the retailers are willing to
Speaker:to buy more products and restock it because the velocity is there,
Speaker:that is for you sign
Speaker:that the demand is still strong enough for you to to keep pushing the product.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:And also that the willingness of retailers to display it, because that's kind of
Speaker:the canary in the, in the, in the cave.
Speaker:Because the first thing that if there's some softness,
Speaker:the first thing that will go is not necessarily
Speaker:the shelf space or the orders, but the willingness for retailers
Speaker:to allocate limited floor space to display activity.
Speaker:Got it. Okay.
Speaker:Your your other new new product launch the
Speaker:the to us is is not alcoholic.
Speaker:And I read that you that you refused
Speaker:the standard method of fermenting and then stripping out the alcohol.
Speaker:And I assume that that has cost you something.
Speaker:Why do you think is doing it the hard way worth it for you?
Speaker:Well, to to ferment means that there is some alcohol.
Speaker:And then to remove it means that not 100% of the alcohol is removed.
Speaker:So there's a legal limit of what's allowed.
Speaker:But our feeling is that, you know, if you're going to, you know, if,
Speaker:if teenagers etc., want to want to want to drink this
Speaker:or different people from different religious groups want to drink this,
Speaker:if there is an amount below the legal limits,
Speaker:that still is not a good, you know, a good thing for for for the consumer.
Speaker:So we decided, you know, why?
Speaker:Why have any fermentation.
Speaker:And look our background is we're juice people.
Speaker:So when you're making a juice and is fermented that means you messed up.
Speaker:So so our mindset is, you know, make it
Speaker:make it really, really good quality and not ferment it.
Speaker:And I think that we've accomplished a really, really good taste.
Speaker:You know, our, our our special martini,
Speaker:just we do various shows and tastings.
Speaker:Everyone really loves it.
Speaker:But there's five items in that group and where we're very happy with it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You you touched on the quality,
Speaker:the quality aspect, which is obviously super, super important.
Speaker:And I think one of the main reasons why you like how you manage to,
Speaker:to be in business for so long and become such, such a big,
Speaker:big business in the industry.
Speaker:You also like pulled high fructose corn
Speaker:syrup for like real cane sugar across the whole line,
Speaker:even though it's more expensive and then competitors copied you.
Speaker:When you make a quality call like that that like actively hurts
Speaker:your your profit margins, how do you defend it internally?
Speaker:And also how do you know that the customer rewards that?
Speaker:Yeah. No, no, that's an excellent question.
Speaker:It definitely is is more costly.
Speaker:And that's and that is why, you know the soda companies and the in
Speaker:the 60s and 70s converted
Speaker:from real cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.
Speaker:So our our view is that the consumer deserves to have what they want.
Speaker:And, you know, we don't know all the science behind it.
Speaker:I mean, different, different people say different things.
Speaker:But our view was that cane sugar was a better product
Speaker:for the consumer
Speaker:than high fructose corn syrup, and that the consumer was looking for that.
Speaker:So while it costs more, you know, in the big picture,
Speaker:I mean, consumers should have what they want and which means,
Speaker:you know, fewer ingredients or no ingredients
Speaker:that are highly processed that have artificial colors.
Speaker:I mean, a great example there is that natural colors
Speaker:are a multiple of the cost of artificial colors.
Speaker:That's not what most consumers want these days.
Speaker:So that's you know what?
Speaker:Not what we want to deliver.
Speaker:I mean, we do have a couple of items that do have artificial colors that we
Speaker:are working on, but 99% of our portfolio
Speaker:is either color free or or natural color.
Speaker:So it's important that people can can consume what they want.
Speaker:And if it costs a little bit more
Speaker:and that means a little bit less profit for us, maybe it's slightly
Speaker:higher price, but that's that's what we that's what we believe.
Speaker:We believe in quality.
Speaker:Look, we're a family company like you mentioned.
Speaker:You know, my my parents started the company and we want product
Speaker:that we can take home to, to to our families and feel good about it.
Speaker:And our employees.
Speaker:We have over 400 employees that they can be proud when they
Speaker:take product home or see it on the shelf, that they that they feel good about it.
Speaker:Look, I want our employees, when they go to the supermarket,
Speaker:they see they see Langer’s and they can say to themselves,
Speaker:to their family that they're shopping with, look,
Speaker:I made this and it's quality and I'm proud of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that is something super important for also a lot of like
Speaker:direct to consumer founders and a lot of people in the industry.
Speaker:And the reason why I'm also asking is I was just on a call with the
Speaker:with a founder a few weeks ago, and they were actively considering
Speaker:reducing the quality of their product and changing something on the
Speaker:on the formula to
Speaker:reduce the quality of the of the product, because it would give them
Speaker:significantly higher profit margins and it would allow them to.
Speaker:Their plan was to keep the costs as they are for the
Speaker:for the end customer, but obviously have significantly higher margins.
Speaker:And I'm always very, very hesitant.
Speaker:What kind of advice I should give to those to those founders?
Speaker:Because obviously on the one side, profit is super important to be able to
Speaker:to grow the company
Speaker:to to stay in business, to be able to invest into marketing and distribution.
Speaker:But on the other side, I know that with that brand,
Speaker:a lot of customers love the products because of the quality
Speaker:and because of the high quality ingredients that they, that they use.
Speaker:So it's always a difficult balance
Speaker:to find between maximizing profit to to stay in business and making sure
Speaker:that the quality stays as high as possible to stay in business even longer.
Speaker:Because obviously,
Speaker:if the customers don't like the products anymore, don't like the quality, then
Speaker:the profit margin will not help you stay in business.
Speaker:Yeah, you're precisely right.
Speaker:I mean, I would suggest to them and you know, and we view this
Speaker:as don't don't forget what got you to this point where,
Speaker:you know, consumers like your brand and consumers will see right through that.
Speaker:What you see a lot over, over the years
Speaker:are, you know, is downsizing of packaging.
Speaker:Consumers see that they know
Speaker:and in the ingredients are different and the taste is different.
Speaker:They know it and you know the loyalty.
Speaker:You're going to lose your loyal customers.
Speaker:And it just it just does not make sense.
Speaker:I mean, if you need to cut costs, think about other ways of of doing that.
Speaker:I mean be smart, you know, you know, engineer different packaging.
Speaker:Do production faster, figure out how to eliminate freight costs?
Speaker:I mean, there are many ways of doing this, and this is an ongoing process
Speaker:that we deal with every day.
Speaker:But don't mess with the ingredients.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:40 years ago, one one buyer at Ralphs said yes
Speaker:to your your PET bottles when everyone else said no.
Speaker:And it makes you the number one apple juice in Southern California for brands
Speaker:that is trying to land its first retail account today, what do you think?
Speaker:What makes a buyer actually say yes?
Speaker:Well, there has to be some value because they're solving for a problem also.
Speaker:And and what, what what retailers need are people walking into the store.
Speaker:Number one so being a being a destination for for a product.
Speaker:So in that case you may want to find a retailer
Speaker:that has a desire of being first.
Speaker:Some retailers want to be first.
Speaker:That's how they present themselves to their consumer.
Speaker:And you want to reach those and say, look,
Speaker:here's this, here's this idea and, and and you can be first.
Speaker:So so again retailers they have to solve for consumers walking in the door.
Speaker:And then they have to once once they're in the store to to
Speaker:to choose your product versus what else is on the shelf.
Speaker:So what's what's important is to offer a better product quality
Speaker:at, at a, at a good price
Speaker:and an a margin for
Speaker:for the retailer that motivates them to, to bring to bring it in.
Speaker:So in, you know, unlike online
Speaker:where there's an endless number of SKUs possible
Speaker:brick and mortar, you have a fixed amount.
Speaker:And what you have to figure out and convince the buyer
Speaker:is that your product
Speaker:will bring in more revenue and more profit
Speaker:margin than what it replaces, because it will replace something.
Speaker:Something's got to go out for you to go in, and you've got to figure out
Speaker:how you're going to be more profitable, higher margin and more revenue
Speaker:for that retailer, or else you haven't been healthy to the category.
Speaker:You have to convince the retailer that, yeah,
Speaker:of course you want to sell your product, but are you going to be healthier
Speaker:to the category?
Speaker:And that's a difference between brick and mortar I think, than online.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And as you mentioned like for the for the retail store
Speaker:like velocity and sales volume is super important
Speaker:because that's how they maximize their the space that they have.
Speaker:Like with Amazon.
Speaker:They don't care
Speaker:if they have thousands of listings up like they just don't show it.
Speaker:And people don't see it like they don't.
Speaker:They don't have to pay rent on it.
Speaker:But with brick and mortar it's a completely different, different story.
Speaker:And I'm not sure whether you have any insights into that.
Speaker:But what do you think?
Speaker:What do founders pitching a retail buyer,
Speaker:what do they get wrong when they like on the on the first meeting?
Speaker:Well, I think you have to understand retail pricing.
Speaker:You have to understand your retail pricing versus competition.
Speaker:And you have to understand the margins that you're you're delivering
Speaker:and that it's really important that you have to have in your budget.
Speaker:Money to promote and promotion
Speaker:has many different avenues depending on on the retailer.
Speaker:But some might be price promotions
Speaker:might some might be digital coupons,
Speaker:it may be purchases of display space.
Speaker:But somewhere in that
Speaker:and then and then each retailer will have their own vehicles.
Speaker:It could be their own digital coupon for their platform.
Speaker:But every retailer is going to have their own program.
Speaker:It could be in store radio, and you have to budget for that,
Speaker:because just putting it on the shelf is not going to yield the success most likely.
Speaker:So have that in mind.
Speaker:It's got to be part of the plan
Speaker:that that then doesn't raise the price so much that it doesn't make sense.
Speaker:So it's a balance you have to promote
Speaker:and you have to have a good everyday price as well.
Speaker:Yeah, I think a lot of brands that get into retail or want to get into retail,
Speaker:they expect the retail store to do all of the promotion and everything,
Speaker:and they think that they just need to get the store on the on the shelf
Speaker:and that's it.
Speaker:But there is also like work after that involved.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:The easy part, the easier part is getting it on the shelf.
Speaker:It's keeping it on the shelf, keeping that shelf space
Speaker:through through velocity, through through good margins.
Speaker:That's that's really important.
Speaker:The other thing that's really important is make sure about your supply chain
Speaker:that you don't have out of stocks because out of stocks cause a couple of problems.
Speaker:One is that you have those lost sales,
Speaker:and then your numbers are going to look incrementally less favorable.
Speaker:The second is it's very irritating for for retailer to deal with out of stocks.
Speaker:They have to change purchase orders.
Speaker:You know, if they have empty spot on the on the on the shelf,
Speaker:that does not look good.
Speaker:So make sure that you have the supply ready to go.
Speaker:And you do not have at a stock.
Speaker:So you really have to keep an eye on on orders and fulfillment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you have said before that the the blood orange flavor
Speaker:wins on the, on the shelf, but ginger wins on, on Amazon
Speaker:because people actively search for for ginger.
Speaker:Like how differently do you approach
Speaker:or treat the same products across different channels.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. No it's fascinating.
Speaker:So for example, you're talking about our
Speaker:the Langer's organic sparkling sparkling water.
Speaker:And yes, in brick and mortar, our blood
Speaker:orange sparkling water is our number one skew.
Speaker:And on Amazon our ginger is the number one skew.
Speaker:You know, people look for different things.
Speaker:What we try to do is, is really solve this problem for for all consumers.
Speaker:Different sizes, different flavors.
Speaker:And it is to us
Speaker:is just fascinating that that there is a difference.
Speaker:Giving another example, we have a Langer's Cola
Speaker:with clean ingredients and in a zero with with with clean ingredients.
Speaker:No, no aspartame.
Speaker:And in Amazon
Speaker:are zero out cells are regular maybe 10 to 1.
Speaker:And in grocery it's you know you know it's more like 6040.
Speaker:So I don't know different different channels do differently.
Speaker:You just you have to watch the numbers.
Speaker:You have to drill down.
Speaker:You can't look at totals and averages.
Speaker:You have to drill down to the consumer and SKU level.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that is that is super, super interesting.
Speaker:And I think that is also part that a lot of operators get get wrong.
Speaker:Like as you mentioned, like on the shelf for example, you win with the
Speaker:with the impulse flavor and the packaging on Amazon you win with the
Speaker:with the keywords and the product name and obviously the review count.
Speaker:And like across different channels, you can have completely different products to.
Speaker:Well, and I know a lot of e-commerce brands run exactly the same catalog,
Speaker:exactly the same like structure across Shopify, Amazon, TikTok shop.
Speaker:And I assume with that, they're leaving a lot of money on the table
Speaker:because what what does well on Shopify does not necessarily do well on Amazon
Speaker:or on TikTok.
Speaker:And you need to look at each channel individually and figure out
Speaker:what is the hero product for each channel and what do people buy precisely.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it also varies by by geography, you know, with with brick and mortar,
Speaker:you you know what that geography is for online.
Speaker:You don't you know, I'll give you an example.
Speaker:So our with a line of cranberry cranberry juice cocktails and our cranberry
Speaker:raspberry outsells our cranberry grape in most of the country.
Speaker:But in the Midwest our cranberry grape outsells our cranberry raspberry.
Speaker:So people have different taste
Speaker:preferences by geography as as well.
Speaker:And online, you know, you may not know where that is or you may,
Speaker:but but it's another data point, something to figure out which makes this
Speaker:which makes this very interesting and interesting business.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. Super fun. I'm curious.
Speaker:You, your family, your family company, you mentioned
Speaker:you have 400 or 400 employees.
Speaker:I assume being like privately held, you can move with the market
Speaker:instead of just just chasing the quarterly numbers.
Speaker:But obviously with 400 people with 200 plus products,
Speaker:like how do you keep that, that family business or founder level
Speaker:taste obsession alive at, at this size
Speaker:so that the brand just does not just drift into like just another label?
Speaker:Well, we work very hard.
Speaker:My brother and I, David Langer, and we worked very hard.
Speaker:And then and then we have really, really great employees.
Speaker:We have many employees that have been here
Speaker:20, 25 years plus, and
Speaker:they have exactly the same view that David and I have,
Speaker:which is all about quality and
Speaker:and delivering the delivering
Speaker:on time, delivering what we say we're going to do.
Speaker:And so it's we couldn't do this without
Speaker:without our people and from, from the, from our product development
Speaker:people, from our quality assurance, from our production, from shipping.
Speaker:I think everyone feels
Speaker:such pride in, in in what we do.
Speaker:We don't cut corners.
Speaker:We take care of our consumer.
Speaker:We take care of our customers.
Speaker:And and so it's a team effort
Speaker:and going a little bit more into the specifics, like in the company,
Speaker:like who has to to taste and and bless a product before before chips
Speaker:and like like who decides what what gets launched and what doesn't.
Speaker:So it's it's we have a good team in that, in that area.
Speaker:So my brother and I, we,
Speaker:we taste but we also have a team of about five people that,
Speaker:that that we taste and, and decide.
Speaker:And then we'll tweak and we'll do a lot of tweaking
Speaker:many iterations, and then we'll bring in other people's
Speaker:opinion, all of bring the product into the office.
Speaker:Get it, get opinions there.
Speaker:Our bachelors are all very engaged in in tasting as well.
Speaker:So there's there's wide variety of people
Speaker:that will ask and involve and that that helps.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Nice.
Speaker:Now I want to do a rapid fire session.
Speaker:And I want to start that by by doing overrated or underrated.
Speaker:So I'll basically just give you a keyword or a category.
Speaker:And you have to tell me whether you think it's overrated or underrated right now.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The first one is is protein in functional drinks.
Speaker:Underrated?
Speaker:I think there's still growth there.
Speaker:Then the nonalcoholic category.
Speaker:Definitely underrated.
Speaker:Prebiotic sodas underrated.
Speaker:Still still growth.
Speaker:What about celebrity beverage brands.
Speaker:Overrated.
Speaker:Now, if I were a celebrity, maybe I would have a different answer.
Speaker:But I would say overrated. Really.
Speaker:It should be about quality, not about other things.
Speaker:Yeah, I think I already know your answer, but clean label.
Speaker:Oh under underrated I think more and more getting getting rid
Speaker:of ingredients that we can't pronounce
Speaker:that we shouldn't have is is is really important.
Speaker:High processed, overly processed foods and food ingredients.
Speaker:Those to the extent that they can be removed is is very important.
Speaker:That's maybe more of a food than a than a beverage discussion.
Speaker:But yeah very important.
Speaker:Yeah yeah I agree.
Speaker:Is there a launch that you that you killed to early and that you
Speaker:that you still think about now, you know, we've had some some launch failures.
Speaker:I had a jalapeno.
Speaker:Beverage that we all thought was great.
Speaker:My employees loved it.
Speaker:They all came into the to the lab to taste it.
Speaker:It didn't it didn't work.
Speaker:So, you know, we just discontinued it.
Speaker:I do have a I do have a launch, a dirty soda
Speaker:that's coming up that we're really excited.
Speaker:And we'll keep an eye and make sure that, that it's that's okay.
Speaker:But that's, that's that's give you a peek under the tent.
Speaker:We'll have that in a couple of months.
Speaker:Nice. Exciting.
Speaker:What what do you think.
Speaker:What is a category
Speaker:that that will become like very, very big over the next few years?
Speaker:Like if you would have to guess like in the next five years, what do you think?
Speaker:What will be the a very big category that is not existent
Speaker:yet for for your business specifically?
Speaker:I wish I knew now what I shared with the world.
Speaker:You know, I don't know, but honestly, I wish I knew.
Speaker:I think, I think fiber is going to be
Speaker:really more and more important.
Speaker:I was an event where they described, you know, protein was,
Speaker:was was last year's big, big topic.
Speaker:This year it's fiber.
Speaker:So I think it's going to be more in that direction.
Speaker:And people want benefits from, from,
Speaker:you know, the food and the, the drinks that they consume.
Speaker:And that's, that's that's an important miss.
Speaker:You know, I think magnesium, certain vitamins, vitamin D,
Speaker:you know, certain certain things are, are undersupply in our food food chain.
Speaker:And so I think, I think those, those areas.
Speaker:Do you think nonfunctional beverages will still have a place or will
Speaker:everyone just drink beverages with a with a function.
Speaker:No, no, I think maybe the majority will still be actually nonfunctional.
Speaker:You know, there's a trend now.
Speaker:You see a lot of mushroom based ingredients.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, that will probably grow.
Speaker:Will it will it ever be a majority of what people consume?
Speaker:I, I would be surprised if that were the case.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Awesome. This was great.
Speaker:Where can people learn more about you?
Speaker:Where can they where they can
Speaker:where can they find Langer's and try all the new products?
Speaker:We'll definitely come to Langer's.
Speaker:But you know, in terms of, of, you know,
Speaker:we're we're we're on Walmart Marketplace, Amazon
Speaker:and then and then you know brick and mortar, you know Walmart Costco,
Speaker:Albertsons, Kroger Bristol Farms,
Speaker:pretty much most most grocery chains.
Speaker:Look we've been we've been we've been lucky.
Speaker:We have a good following.
Speaker:You know not only are we second generation, but
Speaker:our consumers are now second, third generation.
Speaker:So I get letters and emails consumers that,
Speaker:you know, grew up with our our juices and now they're giving it to their kids.
Speaker:So it's really been it's been very good for us.
Speaker:Very happy.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:Love to hear that, Bruce.
Speaker:Appreciate you hopping on. Oh glad to be on.
Speaker:Appreciate your time.
