Hello, and thank you so much for joining us. I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET Inosh, and I am pleased to welcome you to the Nombase Podcast.
Don't forget to check out nombase.com, BevNET's platform built for the CPG community. It's where you can find episodes of this podcast and so much more.
So stick packs are everywhere right now, from hydration and energy mixes to functional powders and supplements. They're easy to ship, consumer-friendly, and a powerful way for brands to innovate. But with that opportunity comes complexity.
Which ingredients work well and which cause headaches? Which packaging pitfalls derail timelines? And how do you turn a great idea into something that can actually scale profitably?
To answer those questions, we are joined today by two leaders from MSI Express, one of the largest contract manufacturers in the space.
They have helped both major CPGs and emerging brands bring stick-packed products to market, drawing on deep experience in commercialization operations and strategy.
Greg Schildmeyer leads commercialization at MSI Express and has over 25 years of experience guiding product launches. Chuck Woods, senior commercial officer, brings 16 years in contract manufacturing along with leadership roles at ConAgra.
Together, Chuck and Greg will share what they've learned from launching stick-packs at scale, the lessons, the challenges, the small tweaks that make the big difference in the trends shaping 2025.
Greg and Chuck, it is so fantastic to have you both here today. I'm super excited about learning more about stick-packs in this space that you're in. So thanks so much for joining us.
Why don't we start off by getting to know you a little bit better? Chuck, let's start with you. Can you give us the quick story of MSI Express and the role that you play in the food and beverage ecosystem?
Sure.
Thanks, Melissa. Look forward to the discussion. So MSI, when you think of MSI Express, you should think of a company focused on growth from that perspective.
So, I mean, you know, we basically feed America. I mean, the contract manufacturing space kind of flies below the radar because my kids always tell me, Dad, I know you make these products, but your names are on the package.
And that's kind of the industry that we live in. So, but we're vital to the food chain of America and the CPGs and more often the emerging brands outsourcing their manufacturing for that reason.
It's a thankless job when it comes to consumer recognition, but for all of the formulators and brands and clients that you have, it's such a crucial role, of course, as we all know.
So, we're here, of course, today to talk about stick packs, and they're a big part of MSI's business. How did MSI first get involved in the stick pack business?
That's a good question, Melissa. So, when you look at our network, MSI Express is made of 16 plants at six states.
And, you know, like I said, we're focused on growth and we also have, you know, we play in the food and beverage space, and we dabble in foods a little from that perspective.
But, you know, right above five acquisitions and five Greenfield, Brownfield startups that we started up. So, I mean, we don't sell open capacity, we sell solutions to our CPG and emerging finance customers.
So, we started actually, it was interesting, in about 25 years ago, we got the, we actually were foundational in helping craft finds and working together and collaborating with Senco slash THM to develop the first stick pack for Crystal Light, for
food service. So, that's where we kind of got our initial foot in the door. And it's really been a growth engine for us because it's a, we're focused on growth in that space.
And now I think our network has grown to be prone from two machines 25 years ago to over 25 stick pack machines in a variety of four different sizes. And, you know, and really three plants of our 16 plants produce stick pack.
So we really grow in a lot and ridden that wave. And, you know, to your point earlier, it's all about convening supportability and it's an easy way to around the go to undergo customers to take that stick pack with them.
4:32
So we are talking about billions of stick packs and certainly big CPG is running numbers that are almost as high as that, but there are so many emerging small brands in our audience and then of course in the CPG space in general.
And one of their biggest issues is not being able to run the minimum order quantities that are required to work with an established partner like MSI Express. What are the kinds of clients that you tend to work with? Do you focus on large companies?
Is there a range?
Yeah, so we've typically worked with large machines, large volumes. But just over the last couple of years, we've adopted or changed our strategy so that we have the asset base to work with some emerging brands a little closer.
And so we added narrower fill machines so that we do not have to run big, big quantities with each production campaign. The other thing that that has offered as part of the commercialization process is the ability to do some pilot work.
Because as we talk about the iterative process of launching a brand, this allows us to do some blending and filling of stick products at a smaller scale, which allows us to get better learnings at a less expensive price.
Hey, Greg, that's a good point.
So, I mean, you know, what we did, we took a step back about 2024 and looked at the gaps in our stick pack strategy, because that's the center of excellence for us, which means that we're really good and have the capabilities and competencies to do
that well at multiple plants. But when we stepped back and looked at it, we, as Greg articulated, have a lot of automation and could do big well, but our gap was small, you know, kind of at the smaller end.
So what we did is we made investments for two-lane and six-lane stick pack machine, but we also made investments on the variety pack side. So now we have variety pack automation, so we could do that too.
So those are our two gaps in our centers of excellence that we have taken care of over the last year and now can offer, to your point, Melissa, we could do the big CPG brands on a highly automated machine.
If you're an upstart, we could do an app, offer a more manual approach to get you into the marketplace and then as you grow and scale, we could offer you different solutions which drives cost-effectiveness for you.
I'm sure that's great news to so many of the folks in our audience, being able to work with, you know, a trusted partner, even as you're at an early stage is so important, and then you can build that relationship, which is where all of the success in
this industry comes from, certainly. I think Crystal Light was probably the first thing I ever had out of a stick pack. I think of them as sort of like the OG stick pack brand. So we've talked a lot about stick packs.
Are stick packs MSI Express' main focus? Are there other areas of CPG where you play as well?
Well, so that's a great question. So I mean, you know, when you think of MSI, we've talked about focusing on growth. I mean, we have 16 plants in six states, and we have a wide variety of capabilities and competencies.
If you look at the points of difference in the marketplace, I mean, we're arguably in the top three of contract manufacturing for food and beverage. And that's kind of where we play in our lane.
I mean, we do everything in the food and beverage space except for refrigerated or frozen right now. And with those plants, basically our point of difference and why we've got a lot of customers coming to us, because the breadth of our capabilities.
Right now, everybody's looking to narrow their number of suppliers because it makes their network more easy to manage.
So with our comprehensive capabilities, from a drive perspective and from a liquid perspective, and the ability to commercialize and from a speed to market.
I mean, those are some of the areas that give us a point of difference in the marketplace, but also, our foundation of our house are built since we're in the food and beverage industry, and safety, quality and productivity, and that's kind of what
we're built on. But yeah, we offer a wide range of capabilities, but where we really focus is our centers of excellence, being stick pack being one of them, but we do cups, canisters, pouches, blending and liquid filling, or other centers of
excellence. We have the capabilities and competencies, and we do it at multiple plants, so there's good contingency planning, and it drives the lowest line of cost for our customers.
Do I understand correctly that you would do a liquid RTD for a brand, and then if they wanted to do a stick pack and a powder, that you could do that as well?
That's correct. So we have two of our plants, our liquid plants are up in Wisconsin, and we've got a septic beverage, we also do hot fill, so we could do a wide variety of ready to drink beverages depending on the population.
Greg, you've spent over 25 years in contract manufacturing, is that right?
That's correct, yeah.
That's amazing. What drew you to this space originally, and what keeps you excited?
I think you look at contract manufacturing, and there's clearly the buy side and the sell side.
And so for the last four years with MSI Express, I've been working on the sell side, which is really concentrated on delivery to the customer, and the success of the plant that's producing that customer's product.
So that role of making sure that both parties are successful is where I occupy. What drew me in 25 years ago was I was working for a big CPG, and they needed an operations type character to interact with their contract manufacturing base.
And it was an established role, but I found it fun to represent the big CPG into the contract manufacturer, because at that point, you're working with and against both parties.
You're challenging your own company to think of things differently because they're working with an external manufacturer. You're challenging the extra manufacturer to think differently because they're delivering to the customer.
And so it's connecting that entire element of the supply chain with what is usually a marketing type organization with the make organization and making sure that that relationship is harmonious and that you're both achieving your goals.
So whether you're on the buy or sell side, that's the ultimate goal, is to make sure that both parties are achieving success in the endeavor.
It sounds to me like you're the glue that holds everything together.
We try to be.
11:54
Well, we have so many brands in our audience who have ready-to-drink beverages, they may have stick packs, they may be thinking about launching their business.
So let's get into the nitty-gritty of how you do what you do. MSI runs billions of stick packs annually.
What are some of the lessons that you all have learned about some of the most important things about manufacturing, which are quality, consistency, and scaling effectively?
That process starts in a laboratory. It starts at a bench top. And to be able to, as we know, to be able to produce something on a bench top and put it into a stick, it's hard, not easy by any means.
But then when you take it to scale, the real issue around stick packs and the movement of powder is just how that powder can retain its homogenous nature all the way through the process.
Because at the bench top, you're delivering some sort of promise to the customer. And we want to make sure that that same promise that is produced in the lab is what we're moving through at 10s of 1000s of pounds to into a tiny little stick.
And it's the exact same, the same thing. So the lesson really is to test the system all the way through and to validate that we can replicate into the stick exactly what came off the bench top.
13:31
So Greg, that's a really good point.
A couple of things happening before that, that we see some of our customers struggle with is, as Greg mentioned, it's all about the formulation.
And we'll be talking trends later, I know, Melissa, but I mean, more often over the last year or two, I mean, stick packs have become a way to deliver functional, a functional beverage, right? And vitamins and minerals and that.
So that brings us great point out its own unique challenges. But I think one of the gaps and key learnings for the brands, especially the emerging brands is if you have a good formula, that's a good start.
But if you take a step back, you need a strategy, right? It's like, okay, how are you going to sell it? Who are you going to sell it to?
You're going to go direct to consumer. You're going to go retail. And we see a lot of good formulations that don't really have a strategy and a way to deliver that to the consumer that really fall apart.
And it's really a shame because the formulations are really good and the customer will never be able to experience that flavor because of a lack of a good holistic strategy, go-to-market strategy.
So when people come to MSI for speed to market, but where we see some of our customer struggle is probably not to Greg's point on the formulation, but more on a lack of effective go-to-market strategy.
Sounds like sometimes you can get the car all gassed up and ready to go. But if you don't have a road to drive in, you get a little bit stuck. And we see that all the time across so many categories.
Founders get so excited about bringing to life this product. It might be something that they had in their family, something that they want to replicate that they tried somewhere else, but they do forget to put together that go-to-market strategy.
Are there any key pieces of a go-to-market strategy that you tend to see are missing? Is it figuring out what your channel strategy is going to be, figuring out what your distribution strategy is going to be?
Are there any pieces that you tend to see are missing when you're working with clients?
It depends on the type of stick pack, right? If you're planning the hydration split, which is very much trending these days, or if you're paying in the powdered soft drinks market.
But I think one of the biggest parts of the strategy is on the sell side. How are we going to sell this? It's easy these days and direct to consumer is growing a lot, and it's the more cost effective.
But that will only take you so far from that standpoint. And one of the most interesting things, and the whole ghost story is kind of interesting, because you're talking about social media, the growth and then kind of the downfall.
I mean, there's been articles about ghost and how the social media, I read an interesting one on Forbes in the last year, the rise and fall ghost compared to social media. But if you look foundationally, what was some of the challenges they had?
I mean, they got the buzz out, but back to your initial question, the formulation wasn't very solid in that, from an ingredient standpoint, and that's end up why they're struggling with that, because nowadays, it's a, you know, like the trend is very
clean ingredients and very, you know, I mean, making the label claims that they made, that's where they struggled. So it is interesting to see that, but that's what I would say, dear question, Wilson.
It's oftentimes not that hard to get a consumer to try a product once, but to get them to buy it over and over and over again is the key, and if your consistency isn't on point, then that completely falls away, so that makes perfect sense.
You talked a little bit about D2C, and certainly the ease of shipping a stick pack plays well into that. What are some of the advantages that you see with stick packs that your clients come to you with in mind? Is it the shipping?
Is it because consumers are looking for something that's convenient to take on the go? I know that supplements are huge in this space. What are some of the key reasons that your clients come to you and want to make a stick pack?
Well, it's interesting because most of our customers have ready-to-drink versions of it and now they want to go to something that's more convenience and portability.
The consumer nowadays is on the go. Anything that's convenient and portable will do well from a packaging perspective as long as you have a good formulation.
How do you scale that bench top? We talked about this a little bit earlier. How do you scale that bench top formulation from this big to a 5,000-pound batch?
I know just from personal consumer experience, oftentimes I'll buy a box of stick packs and then halfway through the summer, they're all, you know, it's completely solid at the bottom of the stick pack.
What are some of those issues that you run into when you're scaling up?
I think it's iterative at first. So you have that formula. And so your objectives then is to get the formula into a stick.
But then, you know, you want to do, you need to get the right materials of construction for the stick so that you preserve it and it's not a brick six months later in the stick. So that's all part of the early design.
But I would just say you go back to manufacturing fundamentals. When you talk about how you scale up, first thing you do is some sort of feasibility trial. Can we move this powder through this process into the stick?
Then you measure those results. It's the vitamin C content, whatever you're promising the consumer, you measure that.
Once you do that feasibility, then you commission the formula, you commission the process that you're using, and then it gets through just a qualification and a validation, which I know those are funny words, but the fact is you're going through a
Yeah, Greg, that's a good point.
So I mean, there's the formulation side and then there's the packaging side, right? Melissa, you asked, how do you make sure that it doesn't?
So I mean, from an MSI Express standpoint, basically, we blend and package everything in pretty much a room controlled with air conditioning, dust control and humidity control. So I mean, the conditions are right.
And when that powder goes into a stick, it doesn't leave that room to give it a better probability of success. But the other thing we see some of our customers struggle with is the size of the stick, right? We produce five sizes.
And I'm going to refer to a number, but that means the width of the stick. So we produce 23 mm sticks, 36 mm sticks, 45 and 55. And to Greg's point, it all comes down to the bulk density of the product and how it flows and getting into the sticks.
So like on powdered soft drinks, those are mostly 23 mm sticks. But when you get to your hydration drinks, those are more 36. And then, you know, coffees, teas, which are more, you know, more powdery, fit in a 45 or 55 mm stick.
So it depends on the bulk density and what your grams per serving is to that, outside of the formulation of the package.
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How often do you find that beverage brands come to you with a ready to drink beverage and then want to create a powdered version in a stick pack?
That happens fairly often.
I mean, if you look, I mean, if you look at, take two examples of recently, we're working with the dial up brands and C4 and LiquidDepth, they came out with their liquid version of ready to drink and now they want to get into the stick because that's
a separate and distinct market and more on the go. And some of the customers are looking at the sustainability aspect of that, right?
So because you're not taking plastic bottles, you're more sustainable because you have lower Scope 3 emissions and there's less trucks on the road.
So, I mean, those are recent examples of companies we're working with that started with the ready to drink, that now want to get to the powder.
And don't ask me why it happens that way, but it happens that way for more often than somebody starts with the dry and then going to liquid.
And certainly going to a stick pack opens you up to so many more venues as well. What is that process like going from an RTD to a stick pack?
Like I sort of imagine, you know, you like dehydrate, I know it's not dehydrating the liquid, but how do you do that? How do you turn a liquid into a powder?
We often work with third-party labs to help us, okay, in that research and development activity.
So we'll often, we have partners through the network where we collaborate so that we, and we do need our customer, we do need our CPG to also provide a lot of leadership in that space.
So that because they're the ones that are looking for, looking for the particular characteristics that they want to deliver to the customer, and which ones they prioritize, and which ones the consumers really, really want and need.
So we ride shotgun, I would say, with our developmental partners, as well as with the CPG's R&D organizations.
Hey, Greg, that's a good point, because if you look at the CPG's, they have the R&D mass and control the R&D and control the brand. So they're going to be very, you know, inwardly focused on making sure that they control the formula.
What we see on the emerging brand side, where they've got an idea, they might need some help with formulations. To Greg's point, we partner with two or three people that could help them.
But I would say in the CPG space, most of them know what they want to do when they go from ready to drink to dry.
But on the emerging brand side, we provide, you know, besides the speed of market, you know, safety, quality and productivity is important to us.
And that's important to those companies because they manage the R&D, the marketing and the brand, and they leave the manufacturing excellence to MSI Express.
How do those partnerships that you have with Flavor Houses work over this process?
Well, it's an iterative process from that standpoint. I mean, we've got two or three in the Chicago land area that we work with that, you know, will collaborate, you know, it's collaboration between the Flavor House MSI and the customer.
I mean, the customer knows what the, from a consumer's perspective, what they're trying to hit from either functional ingredients or from a, you know, what their objectives of the brand is. So, you know, it's a very iterative process.
And, you know, we get involved in the, in the trialing and making sure that they could produce what they need to. And then when they're ready to scale, that's where we step in because of our speed to market capabilities.
There's, there's a lot more there. You know, it reminds me of something from my past where, you know, you're familiar with Formula 409, right?
Absolutely.
Do you know why it's called Formula 409?
Because everything up until 408 didn't work.
Right, right.
And so, there's a lot of that with us also as you work through, we don't fail that often, but as you work through development of anything, there are, and I think Chuck mentioned it well, it's that iterative process of success, failure, success,
failure. It's not very linear. It's going to be a bumpy ride to get to the characteristics that you want.
You know, I always learn something during these calls. I didn't know that and I'm so glad that I do. So thank you.
Chuck, you mentioned functional ingredients, and some of those are notoriously difficult to work into a beverage formulation in a way that is tasty. You know, some of them have really strong flavors. They can be difficult to mask.
What are some of the ingredients that you find are a little bit more challenging?
You know, whether it's because they're tough to mask, or whether they're difficult in the manufacturing process to make into a powder that will stay on the test of time.
That's a good question. I mean, people are trying to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. So they're always trying to bring in new vitamins or different types of minerals in there to kind of differentiate themselves.
I mean, I think one of the hardest things to mask is protein. I mean, right? Protein is so popular too.
And people not only want to put functional ingredients, but protein benefits in there. To me, one of the hardest things to mask would be the taste of protein in trying that.
Greg, I don't know what's your thoughts on that, but we see a lot of different vitamins and minerals that people try to introduce, which is a challenge.
Yeah, I see the, there's some challenging ingredients to work with more from the manufacturing, the processing side, particularly sweeteners, which can tend to be more hydroscopic.
And then as they're picking up any moisture, and it's not about the moisture inside the facility, it's about the moisture at the make facility, the moisture in the transit of those ingredients to our facilities.
And that they pick up moisture and then they get a little clumpy, and then you have to work through breaking that down to make sure that your product is going to mix properly and flow properly.
That is a good point because the trend now is sugar-free versus sugar, because, but I mean, when you introduce a new popular sweetener, Elios, and most of that is produced internationally.
So, I mean, over the last two, three years, there's been struggles with that. And to Greg's point, making sure that it's easily blended and put to a manufacturing process without clumping and stuff related to that.
I didn't realize that the majority of Elios is produced outside of the United States. Are you seeing that it's more difficult to procure based on all of the tariffs and everything that are going on?
Well, that's a good question, right? So, I mean, you know, at the end, certainty in the market with tariffs is definitely forcing, you know, a lot of our customers to look more domestically or for domestic options versus international options.
Just to tag on to that, I think it's a little, it's even still too early to tell.
Yeah.
A lot of supply chains were in place and they haven't been able to pivot yet. So, I think all of us, not just in this space, but in, you know, all together, we're trying to understand the impact there to real demand and supply sides of...
That's a good point, Greg. I mean, right, if you look five years ago with COVID, we turned a supply chain that was pretty domestic into a pretty resilient international supply chain, but now with tariffs is forcing customers the other way.
So, it's a balancing act, but it'll be interesting to see once the uncertainty in the marketplace stabilizes what that looks like and the impact on supply chain.
There's certainly plenty of opportunity for innovation.
29:47
How about packaging? I mean, no matter what area of CPG you're in, packaging can be a pitfall. We were talking a little bit about how you oftentimes see that packaging can derail timelines.
And of course, everything we know about go-to-market plans means that you need to be as on time as possible. If you've set up a strong one, how does that work? What are some of the issues that come up with packaging?
There are so many facets to that question, Melissa, but I'll start with the first piece, which is you got to think consumer first, okay?
So what does the consumer need from that package to start with the stick? And so they needed to be the same as it was when it came off the machine, the stick came off the machine.
So the package has to have the right technical properties, the right barrier protections, all of that. But I would say that's even secondary, because the first thing the consumer really needs is to be able to open a thing.
They have to be able to tear it open. It has to be easy to tear it open. We can't make it hard for the consumer to get to our product.
And I think that spans across so many different, you know, in your daily life, you know, opening your yogurt cup can be really hard.
So hard.
So that's really important. So there's some good packaging. We have a lot of packaging partners that have created good forms of materials construction that make it convenient for the consumer to get to the product.
So it starts there and then establishing that that consumer has the right barrier protection for the particular product involved. We do rely on that package to preserve shelf life once we get it into the stick.
Now, there's some other elements around that that link in to the product itself because from a design standpoint, you're looking to establish all those critical compatibilities. Product material compatibility is really, really important.
You might get some stick packs that only look like they're a third full. They're probably powdery, fluffy products that when you deposit them into the stick, they puff up. If they puff up too high, the stick can't...
you apply heat to glue the stick together, and it doesn't hold because you have powder in there. There's all kinds of design elements, and I'm passionate about this because the design is so important.
And to the success of the product and the success of the making of the product. So those compatibilities are number one in packaging. There's also elements around artwork.
And that portion of packaging, we find that to be very, very challenging as that becomes complicated.
And it involves regulatory activity, it involves quality activity, it involves a lot of very important stuff to make sure that what we write on those packages, what we have written on those packages is legal and it's within the regulatory
I love how passionate you are about packaging.
When you talk about packaging is a barrier, are we mostly talking about moisture?
The way the product flows into the package and yeah, yeah, moisture. I would agree with that.
When we go back to packaging challenges, right? Sustainability is the next step. I mean, we talked about a stick pack is more sustainable, but then ready to drink and it meets the trends, consumer trends bottom of the go.
But there is the next level of, okay, how do we make, to Greg's point, why bring this up is the barrier properties, right? I mean, there's a foil in there to get the barrier property, so which kind of hurts the sustainability angle.
But I know some of our suppliers are working on solving that.
And the big trade-off is, okay, well, we can make it more sustainable, but you're going to give up shelf life, and nobody wants to give up shelf life, because the average shelf life for a stick pack is probably six months to a year, depending on the
functional properties in there. But sustainability, that's kind of from a trend standpoint, that's the next place to go to, is how do we make the stick more sustainable?
Are you seeing a lot of developments in that area? I know certainly that plastic is the easiest way to go, and that oftentimes compostable materials are really bad barriers. Are you seeing that area of packaging move forward?
Yeah, we are, and we're collaborating with trials with some of our suppliers to help them get there, because I think that's the next step for the packaging perspective, is making that stick pack more sustainable.
You mentioned innovation earlier, Melissa, and I think that that's a real hotspot for innovation in this space right now, is for the packaging suppliers, they're all working to move towards sustainability.
They're all working to move towards longer shelf lives for the branded products.
Certainly, the packaging has to work, because otherwise, again, consumers aren't going to keep buying it, and then we miss the entire point, so that makes perfect sense.
All right, so if I'm a brand and I'm looking to launch my beverage, and I can't decide whether to go forward with a ready to drink, and then maybe think about a powder later, or just start with a powder, how do you help guide people through that
process, your clients? How do you help them think through what makes sense in terms of how and what to launch?
That's a good question. I mean, and I'll bring it back to what we talked about earlier in the podcast about strategy, right?
I mean, you know, I don't know why, but it appears that most of our customers go with the liquid side first and get that out, and then follow with the dry. But it doesn't have to be that way.
From that standpoint, you could certainly start with stick back and go to ready to drink, from a ease of use and from a packaging standpoint. I know, Greg, what do you think?
My perspective on that is, usually there's a pool from somewhere.
So whether that's a pool from consumer testing and discussions that they've had, or whether there's a particular store that the customer wants to work with, so I feel that that decision around ready to drink or powder is really more of a pool
That's interesting.
That's an interesting perspective, Greg, because going back to the innovation question that you asked, Melissa, right?
I mean, the pace of innovation as the client, I read a SPINS report over the last week or two that shows for the last three, four years, innovation has significantly declined. And COVID had a little to do with that.
But I think the stat was that 70% of innovation or line item extensions and 30% of them was actually true new category innovation, which is interesting because that's changed from five to six years ago.
But I mean, I think that dictates your strategy from that. And to Greg's point, it's all about meeting a consumer need. So and what the market growth is, right?
Because if you look at the market growth on the Stigpak site, everybody wants to make a hydration product, right? Because if you look at, everybody wants to be like Liquid IV. But why is that?
Because that category that I was looking at spins data, and it's growing double digits, like 20, 30 percent. There's not many categories in food and beverage space growing that much.
So there's a lot of new entrants, and there's a lot of people that fall out because their formulation is not as good, or consumer just doesn't like it.
It's part of a marketing plan, but it's also like we talked about earlier in the podcast, starts with a solid formulation and a good strategy.
38:21
If we're talking about innovation, we're talking about trends around hydration, protein, functional ingredients.
I want to know what you're seeing. You see so many brands and products come across your desk and you have a unique vantage point to what brands are looking to make. What are you seeing?
What are the ingredients? What are the categories? What are the form factors?
Tell us what you're seeing.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot on there. And this stick pack space because of your point, well, it's a convenience and portability in the marketplace. It's kind of an abrading.
It's not just powder beverage and hydration drinks. If you look at it, if you look at brands like Superguts, who are making more functional for health and wellness, you know, that's one of it. You'll get bone broth.
I mean, who would have thought five years ago, you'd be putting bone broth in a stick, but it's about health and wellness functionality. And it kind of goes back to three or four trends that we're seeing in the marketplace.
One, you know, we talked about it before. It's health and wellness, right? You know, ultra processed foods, everybody wants to be cleaner.
Everybody wants to be focused on their health.
And that's why, you know, over the last five years, stick packs have become more functional benefits and, you know, a lot more supplements and vitamins in those stick packs, you know, and just the GLP-1, you know, GLP-1, I think, is having an impact
on that, you know. You know, when you look at the super guts and that, and the trends related to that. And then, you know, I mean, one good thing about stick pack is direct to consumer. We talked about having a strategy and a plan.
Well, it's easy from a stick pack standpoint to ship that, to buy on Amazon and to ship that because it's, you know, there's less barriers to entry and your speed to market is much greater from that standpoint.
So, I mean, those are some of the trends that we're seeing outside of the sustainable factor that we've talked about already.
Certainly with D2C, you have an opportunity to educate your customer. So many of the functional ingredients and wellness products really do require some serious education, so it makes a lot of sense to play in that area.
You've mentioned a few products in the protein area, and of course, you know, you'd have to be, I don't know, buried underground, not to know that protein is such a continually growing category. What are some of the formats that you see there?
You mentioned bone broth. In terms of protein, are you seeing a lot of, is it whey, is it clear whey, is it plant-based? What are you seeing for protein?
I would say it's all of the above, right?
I mean, they're trying to get to a more, you know, a healthy source of protein. And from that standpoint, but I mean, we've kind of seen a little bit of everything.
Everybody's trying to experiment, you know, plant-based would be, you know, the easier one to do. But, you know, every week, where I think Greg and I are surprised by, okay, we're going to commercialize this with what? What's in this formula?
Well, we're also seeing that across our larger business, to add on to what Chuck is saying.
So, you know, whether it's putting protein into a canister, or whether it's mixing up big, big super sacks of protein for customers to put into large bags that are sold at club stores.
So, you know, we're seeing powders, not necessarily in sticks, but we're seeing powders in other packaging formats that are going to deliver protein to the consumer. We're seeing a lot more of that.
Which makes so much sense. I mean, it's kind of hard to toe to chicken breast around with you. Certainly, you know, taking a powder with you makes a lot of sense.
Just my own personal curiosity, is clear protein like clear whey protein, is that harder to make consistently and, you know, in a non-clumping way than something that's not clear? How does that work out?
Well, that's why we partner with the formulation houses because that's their expertise and that's where we get the collaboration with them. So, I can't say we've seen much of clear protein yet, but I'm sure I've seen a lot of reading on that.
I'm sure that's a thing to come from that standpoint. So, I think you're a little ahead of the curve there.
So... And then how about functional ingredients? Are you seeing, you know, are you still seeing ashwagandha?
I mean, caffeine, of course, is the mother of all functional ingredients. And at the BevNET office, we get a lot of samples. And oftentimes, I see hydration products mixed with caffeine, which, you know, sometimes I want...
You're sort of doing both at the same time. You're hydrating and dehydrating. But what are you seeing for functional ingredients?
If you look at the space in total, like vitamins and supplements, I mean, performance and nutrition, like we've talked about, is pretty hot.
You know, the three areas within the vitamins and the supplements market, that's impacting stick backs. We talked about protein. We talked about vitamins and minerals.
And we talked about performance nutrition. From that same point, you mentioned Ashwagandha. That's newly integrated from that powder.
So, you know, I don't know if I had the right answer for that question, but...
Well, we will certainly continue to keep an eye out for the samples. And so often at BevNET, you know, we'll get samples from very emerging brands and they really are hard to open, like you mentioned.
At some point when they start working with MSI and they're easy to rip right open, we'll know that you guys had a hand in that. Well, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you both about this. You know, I think we take so many things for granted.
And this is something that, you know, I didn't necessarily think too much about until I started thinking about. And there really is just so much behind making stick packs in a way that is consistent and really portable and easy for consumers to use.
So thank you so much for joining me today on The Nombase Podcast. Greg Schildmeyer and Chuck Woods of MSI Express. Thank you so much for joining me on The Nombase Podcast.
For everybody else out there, thanks for tuning in. And we'll see you next time. That concludes another episode of The Nombase Podcast.
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