+ Drink better, live better: An interview with VeeV founder Courtney Reum

We're very excited to share this interview with Courtney Reum, co-founder of VeeV. VeeV is the world's first açaí spirit, but it's more than an innovative beverage. What's so compelling about VeeV is the fact that the company is built on authenticity, honesty, and a foundation of values that are incredibly rare, even in comparison to other sustainable products. I feel like I asked Courtney some pretty tough questions, questions that most other companies would have dodged or given me a canned answer to, but Courtney never did. Not only is that refreshing, but as consumers become increasingly demanding of so-called sustainable companies, I think it will give Veev a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage that will lead them to success. Please do yourself a favor and check out what he has to say. Visit the VeeV site for more information.


Can you tell us the VeeV story in a nutshell?
I started this company with my younger brother Carter. We're both original Chicagoans, and moved out to New York when we were 17 and 18 to go to Columbia. I'm two years older, so I'm 28, he's 26. After college, we kind of always knew we wanted to do our own thing, but when you're right out of college, you don't have any skillset, any contacts, or any money, so it's probably not the best time to jump right in. I decided I was going to take the finance route, so I went to Goldman Sachs, where I was doing investment banking, and my brother followed.

After about five years of doing that, four years in New York and one year in Sydney, I had always focused on the consumer products space. I worked on the Procter & Gamble/Gillette merger, and more notably worked on a bunch of startups. I did the first Vitamin Water deal where a little private equity shop in San Francisco put in $20 million and took out $600 million, I did the IPO for Under Armour, then in spring of 2005 worked on the Allied Domecq/Pernod Ricard merger, which was a $12 billion deal. In the context of that, doing the due diligence, I looked at the space and said "Wow, a Bacardi or Diageo would never do something as innovative as Veev for a variety of reasons."

They're very slow to market, it takes a lot of money for them to give a new product a chance, and they're very risk averse. There's a liability to it, because if you're Bacardi, you can just launch Bacardi Super Melon Gold and you don't have to take the chance of launching something like VeeV. Now, it probably won't be a home run, but it will probably be a double or a triple, so they usually just stick with brand extension or line extensions.

On the flip side of that, as a consumer living in New York, I was usually drinking Red Bull and vodkas because I was tired from work all the time. I was just really bored with the things I was drinking. So the combination of those things made me think it would be great to come up with something different that, as our motto suggests, was a better way to drink.

So we just started out on that idea of a better way to drink, without any real proposition or any particular ingredients in mind. The first step was to backsolve and figure out which ingredients would fulfill that proposition. The first one that came to mind was açaí, the Brazilian fruit. My brother and I discovered açaí on a surfing trip in 2003 and really loved it, and when did a little research, we said "Wow, this is the next big thing." You see that it has all the attributes of pomegranate, but it's much healthier and has a better backstory from Brazil. We saw that it was about to explode, so that became our keystone ingredient.


So what are some of the properties of Açaí that make it that perfect keystone ingredient?
Açaí is filled with antioxidants- 57% more than pomegranate. It's also generally touted as the most well-rounded fruit or vegetable on the planet. Whereas if you eat an orange, you get a ton of vitamin C but very little else. If you eat açaí, you get very real amounts of protein, fiber, essential fatty acids, and antioxidants. They call it the Amazon Viagra, "nature's vitality" in the Amazon, and it's incredibly healthy.

It only grows in the Amazon rainforest, and if all that wasn't enough, Oprah just named it her number one superfood. So that's what got us started with açaí. We really liked it because it has a healthier taste profile- very exotic, like a dark berry with a hint of chocolate, but it also has a taste that's just familiar enough yet just exotic enough that it's a little different.

Obviously sustainability is a core part of the VeeV brand. Can you tell us more about that?
I don't profess to be a member of the green movement for 20 years, because I'm only 28, but our parents always raised us to be conscious and aware. They instilled us with the idea that what affects one of us affects all of us. There was that element where I asked if the alcohol business was really what I wanted to do. If so, I wanted to make it a little more meaningful, a little differentiated, and nobody in alcohol space was doing anything remotely green or eco-friendly. We're really trying to be the first, be the pioneers. I'm sure- hopefully- people will start copying us if we have any success. If Bacardi and these other companies start mimicking VeeV, that's good for everybody and the planet. Our motto is "Better your life, your conscience, and your cocktail."

On the green front, our biggest initiative is that we donate $1 for every bottle we sell, right off our top line, back to the rainforest where açaí comes from, to help offset our carbon footprint and help provide sustainable, organic açaí through a farming project that we co-fund with Sambazon, who is the main purveyor of non-alcoholic açaí juice. If you saw our press kit, all our materials are on recycled paper printed with soy ink. Everybody in the company either drives a hybrid or is carbon-neutral. Our distillery is the only one in America that gets at least 25% of their power through wind generation, and their distillation uses about 200% less energy than a traditional hot still. The last thing is that VeeV is the only alcohol brand that's a member of Business for Social Responsibility, and several other leading green organizations like Co-Op America and Social Ventures Network.

VeeV launched in May of last year in Los Angeles, a couple months after that in San Diego, about two months ago in San Francisco, and actually as we speak, in Miami.

My understanding is that acai production is limited to Brazil. With that in mind, can you talk about your long-term sourcing strategy?
Açaí is only available from the rainforest in Brazil. That's the only place it grows. If you ask people in Brazil, they think China's going to start growing it, but it's unlikely that will actually happen. There's a bee that's key to the fertilization and pollination process that they don't think the Chinese will be able to mimic, so it's only from the rainforest. In some ways that adds to the mysticism, allure, and exoticism of the berry.

There's been this trade off between high-end and green: is this going to be luxurious, or is it going to be green? The two have been mutually exclusive for a long time, and people are just starting to find ways to use green to add to the brand rather than make it a detraction.

In terms of sourcing, currently less than 1% of all the açaí that's out there is currently utilized. So there's a ton of wild, unharvested açaí, so there's no issues with sourcing or anything to worry about as far as cutting down trees or anything. In fact, the açaí boom has been really good for the rainforest. As we all know, the Amazon rainforest became deforested because it was planted with soy and other agribusiness, but the way açaí is harvested is sustainable. You kind of cut these little branches at the top of the tree, you don't actually cut down the tree or do anything else to harm the surrounding flora or fauna.

One of the really remarkable things about VeeV is that aside from having really innovative, functional ingredients, it's all wrapped in a great brand. Is "glamorous green" important to VeeV?
It's really important. As you pointed out, that's been the shortcoming of a lot of green products. There's been this trade of between high-end and green: is this going to be luxurious, or is it going to be green? The two have been mutually exclusive for a long time, and people are just starting to find ways to use green to add to the brand rather than make it a detraction.

There's a fashion designer named Linda Loudermilk that we do a lot of stuff with, and she coined the phrase "luxury eco." She's the first designer in her space to have very high end clothes that are also very eco-friendly. I'd put us in the same category. Our brand is very appealing and high-end, but we're able to capture both the high-end and green markets without asking people to make a sacrifice or tradeoff.

Corporate social responsibility is getting a lot of press right now. How does CSR play out for VeeV in comparison to mainstream products? Do you see CSR as a competitive advantage for VeeV?
Yes, I definitely see it as a competitive advantage. With all due respect to what anybody is doing, because even small things are great if they help further the cause, when I see brands that I know are not making money say "A portion of the proceeds go to charity," I'm a little skeptical. What does that really mean? First of all, if they're not making any money, so 100% of zero is still zero. Second, "charity" is kind of a nebulous thing, and maybe I'm a cynic, but unfortunately there's a lot of charities out there that don't use their money wisely. So our mission was to make it a really real, digestible story.

We wanted to make it ring true and hit home, because consumers are very astute. People are going to wise up to claims like "a portion of proceeds," whereas ours is very tangible and specific, and nobody can really question where it's actually going.

There's companies out there like 1 Percent For The Planet or Patagonia that are donating 1% of their sales. We're donating $1 dollar for every bottle, which is a heck of a lot more than 1% of our sales. A bottle goes for $34.99, and that's the end price, not the price we sell it for.

We wanted to make it a very real amount, so nobody could accuse us of not being green or not living up to what we say we're doing. To have this go back to the rainforest where açaí comes from, and for it to help offset our carbon footprint and provide sustainable açaí, that's a much tighter, more tangible and real story. We wanted to make it ring true and hit home, because consumers are very astute. People are going to wise up to claims like "a portion of proceeds," whereas ours is very tangible and specific, and nobody can really question where it's actually going.

Consumers used to give companies an "A for effort." If you did anything, they gave you a pat on the back. But now they're asking a lot more questions.
For sure. From our side, we do a lot of events, so we get lots of calls from people that ask use to sponsor their "green event." And even just six months ago, we probably would have said that if you're doing any kind of green event, we probably want to be a part of it, but now we have to ask what you're really doing. Just having recycled napkins isn't enough, you know?

On the other hand, I do applaud anybody for taking the first step and doing something. It's just that using recycled napkins doesn't constitute a green event, and I can't sponsor everything, but it's certainly better than nothing.

One of the challenges for niche, lifestyle brands like VeeV is "crossing the chasm": making that transition to a mainstream product without losing the credibility of the core consumers that got them there in the first place. Do you see that as an issue for VeeV in the future?
Well, it's hard for me to say because we haven't crossed that chasm yet. But if you look at our press, the events we've attached ourselves to, the celebrities we've been mentioned with- like we were just in People for doing Matthew McConahaughey's birthday- it's been people like Drew Barrymore, Adrian Grenier, or Leonardo DiCaprio. We're not selling our soul just to get someone to hold a bottle, it's people that know VeeV, they're often very green conscious. I don't know the answer to your question, but I hope that by doing it the right way, we're aligning ourselves with the right people and making it more authentic and it will resonate with consumers as it becomes a more mainstream product.

The unfortunate reality is that the green product space is full of myths, hype, and snake oil. How can consumers sort through all of it?
At the end of the day, it's got to come down to consumers being more educated and having a more discerning eye. There will always be people claiming things, that's just the nature of industry.

All we can do is be very honest about what we are and what we aren't. If someone asks me if this is healthy alcohol, I don't know about that. It's still alcohol, and over the course of time, it will do more harm to you than good. But is it healthier? Is there a little bit of nutrition? Are there better quality ingredients, meaning 100% natural or organic, thus making it a better option? Absolutely, and I would never advertise it as anything other than that.

I would put it in the same category as red wine. A couple glasses in moderation can be good. We're providing people with a better option.

We are what we are, and we aren't what we aren't, and being honest about it is the only way to do it. People will see that our product is authentic, and even if we have shortcomings, we're offering a better option. Whether it's the product, or as a company, are we perfect? No, but we're absolutely not fake, and that's the human side of it.

I'm really impressed with your honesty. It seems like you're doing everything you can to make VeeV 100% authentic and transparent. Is that a key part of your brand?
Yeah, it really is. For example, any celebrity you see with VeeV, if you ask them, I guarantee they know what VeeV is.

The worst thing you can do in general as a marketer is mislead the consumer. As soon as you cheat them, or make them feel like they were duped, you'll never get them back. That's the last thing we want to do. We are what we are, and we aren't what we aren't, and being honest about it is the only way to do it. People will see that our product is authentic, and even if we have shortcomings, we're offering a better option. Whether it's the product, or as a company, are we perfect? No, but we're absolutely not fake, and that's the human side of it.

Will the competition adapt to these new consumer expectations, or are they always going to be stuck where they're at?
I hope so, at some point. But having dealt with them, and it sounds like you have too, there's just so many layers of the onion to peel back. You can get me on the phone like this and I'm going to be honest with you, but if you go to Procter & Gamble and ask them about the trans-fatty acids in Pringles, you're going to have a tough time getting someone on the phone that's going to really level with you. Half of it is that you can't even get the person on the phone to speak to them.

So I don't know if they'll ever get there, but the only way it will work is if consumers demand it. If consumers demand authenticity and real answers, then I think someone's going to have to step up to the plate and talk to you about Pringles or Twinkies or whatever.

It seems like these big, public companies just don't have it in their DNA to be as responsive as consumers are asking them to be.
That's the advantage of being a small company, we can be nimble and change course. We haven't drastically changed course, but you're always navigating the waters and adjusting a little bit. It's not always an advantage to be small, but being nimble and quick to react is what we bank on.

So what's next for VeeV?
I'll tell you what's not next. There's currently no new products in development, because I think VeeV is already unique enough. It's already challenging enough to get the word out about VeeV in the right way that we don't want to confuse the market. At least in the next 12 months, there's no plans for any new products.

Our launch strategy is to deepen before we broaden, and we're looking to expand our presence in the markets we're in. For example, in Los Angeles, we're in all of the tastemaker and influencer spots, but we're not everywhere, so that will start to trickle down into other markets. We're expanding into Miami this month into the end of the year. Looking into 2008, we'll be expanding into Chicago and Vegas, and New York will definitely be on the docket shortly thereafter, and a number of other areas like Colorado and Arizona.

VeeV has worked because we've expanded fairly aggressively to expand into four cities in six months, but we haven't tried to overdo our presence in any of those. We've just gone after our demographic, the right demographic- the people that set trends. It makes it a lot more digestible to go for that market and hope it trickles down. We just don't have the budget of bigger companies, so we have to do it smarter rather than just with more dollars.

+ Vertically integrated beverage innovation: An interview with Amelia Bay

The world of beverages moves faster than most, and few parts of beverage move faster than tea. Fueling much of the category's growth is the furious pace of innovation, in terms of ingredients, sourcing, extraction, packaging, and just about any other dimension you care to measure. Amelia Bay, a vertically integrated extraction company, has been at the forefront of this growth, and AB's Jason Crandall was kind enough to tell us about it. Be sure to check out the Amelia Bay site for more details. Thanks to Jason for his time and attention.

First of all, can you just give us some background on Amelia Bay?
We are an extraction company. We extract all kinds of botanical products, mostly in tea. We've been doing this for about 10 years now, and as the market's changed, we've changed too. Now, we're almost more of an engineering firm than anything else, catering to the beverage industry, whereby we bring in all sorts of agricultural products like tea, coffee, pomegranates, mate, you name it. We extract these products right here, concentrate them and formulate these materials into finished beverage products. So, a customer could come to us and say "I want to launch this tea or tea/juice blend," and we would source all the leaf tea from different parts of the world, we would source the juice or fruit, bring them in and do all the extraction work here, process all the components and polyphenols in the components, then put them back together into a super concentrated extract that ships in a drum to the bottler where water, sugar, and whatever else is added to bring it to a ready to drink state, then it goes in bottles and onto the shelves.

What products are out right now that you've worked on?
Unfortunately, we have non-disclosure agreements with all our customers. But, they're big companies- a lot of the major brands you see on the shelf right now.

One of the unique things about Amelia Bay is your vertical integration. Can you tell us exactly what that means?
What that means is that we have nobody we buy from except for tea plantations in Indonesia, Argentina, China, Africa, etcetera. We're certified organic as well as fair trade, and what that means is that we buy organic products, bring them in, process them, extract them, formulate them, and ship it to the bottler.

In the past, if you wanted to formulate a beverage, you'd go to a flavor house that buys different flavors, and they all buy from one another, and you'd have five different companies in the middle. Where with us, there's nobody in the middle. We buy from the growers, do all the processing, and ship to the bottler.

That sounds really powerful, because it enables you to have strict control over the entire "chain of custody" for the whole product.
It absolutely does, which is why we have non-disclosure agreements. A lot of people ship in their own ingredients, we don't even source them. They have a specific tea or fruit from a specific plantation that they want to do. They ship it into us, and we do all the extraction work. All these formulas are owned by our company, but they're unique to a specific customer, and we can't copy that for anyone else.

We're focusing on health & wellness trends in both beverage and society in general. What trends are you seeing right now?
People are interested in what they're putting in their bodies. They're interested in reading labels, in reading about polyphenols, in functional foods that provide a health benefit, and I think you're going to see that continue to grow. Now whether that's just tea, I don't know. Tea will continue to grow, tea juice blends will continue to grow, mate, any of these things that were previously considered nutritional supplements, you'll see more of them in the beverage and food industry. I don't think that will backslide. The selection is going to grow and change, I don't think people are going to go back to ordering a Coke. Their days are sort of numbered. But you see major players like Coke and Pepsi launching more functional products. It's a big change in the industry.

Is there a lot of hocus pocus? Yeah, there is. But there's a lot of legitimate companies out there making a lot of legitimate products. The energy drinks launched it in the 90s, like Red Bull. Why drink something else when you can drink a Red Bull that will energize you and do all this other stuff? It's grown and evolved from there into all sorts of market segments, like Whole Foods.

You mentioned all the hocus-pocus out there. How can people sort through all the information and get through the hocus-pocus and snake oil?
Unfortunately, you have to do your homework. Anything that's a functional beverage, for example, our customers aren't allowed to put any health claims on the label. That's the ruling by the FDA. You can say that such-and-such is in the product, but you can't say what such-and-such does. So in a way it's good, and in a way it's bad.

For someone that's interested in learning about what they're putting in their body, the information is out there. It's on the internet. You can learn about all these things, but you've got to take the time to learn about it. And none of it's under the ruling of the FDA, they're not governing what you can and can't eat, so you have to do the homework.

Food safety and other sourcing issues have been in a news a lot lately. Has that affected your business at all?
Of course it's affected us, like anybody else. China is a huge supplier of tea, and we've had to pretty much quit buying from China. It's not that we've ever had any problem, but just to avoid any problems, don't buy from China. Buy from Japan. Buy from Africa. They all sell green tea. It's more expensive, so it's raised our costs, and that gets passed onto the consumer, although not a great deal. But we quit buying from China, because it's not worth the hassle of having someone come to us and say that such-and-such is in our tea.

Are consumers willing to pay that price premium?
Sure. All these companies, toy companies for example, they're not making toys in China because it's a better way to do it, they're doing it because it's less expensive. You're going to see costs rise in all kinds of products that were formerly sourced in China, because it's a massive industrial country with cheap labor. If you lose that supplier, costs are going to go up across the board, not just in food.

So is the customer going to be willing to pay the higher price? I don't see where they'll have much choice. The more heat that gets put on China, the more toys that get recalled, the more dog food that gets recalled, these are all costs that are incurred, and they have to go somewhere. It's just Econ 101.

Yeah, it seems like people are beginning to realize that there's no free lunch, that if they want higher-quality materials, there's going to be a cost.
The customers that we've added in the last year are choosing to use raw materials that cost probably four or five times the raw materials we've used in the past. Which is really interesting to me, because the housing market has crapped out, the stock market is kind of "eh." There's a lot of uncertainty, but people are putting massive amounts of money into their products- and it's not just tea or food ingredients, it's also the packaging- the bottles, the labels, the type of packaging they're using, it's outrageously expensive compared to what they were using a few years ago which was just like your basic bottle of Coke. They're quadrupuling their costs, but there must be people buying it. Go to Whole Foods. It costs five times more to shop there compared to any other grocery chain, and that comes from reputation and quality of product.

Tea has been growing really fast over the past decade or so. Can it continue to grow like this forever, or will it plateau soon?
Right now, tea is continuing to grow. We've shipped more tea this month than we ever have in the history of the company. Will it continue? I don't know. We're always looking at doing new products, and we've changed a lot in the last year. We're not just tea, we've gotten into lots of functional beverage products to satisfy the growing demand. Like I said, I don't think people are going to switch from functional products back to drinking Coke or Pepsi, but will it continue to be just tea? Of course not. People will find new products. Like stevia. Are you familiar with that?

It's a sweetener, right?
Well, you're not supposed to call it a sweetener. But it's a long time sweetener that been used forever, but there's laws that say we're not supposed to use it in products because of the sugar lobby in this company. There's laws against using the word "sweet" next to "stevia."

Wow, really?
Oh yeah. That's why you never see any products with it. But stevia alone is getting a lot of attention. There's just all kinds of things, not just tea. Look at what's happening with pomegranates, with acai, mate... Is it going to plateau? Will people get sick of hearing about these things that are so hot right now? Yeah, I think they will. But is the core idea of functional foods and beverages going to go away? No.

Health is going to be at the forefront of food forever. It's not going to change. People want to live longer and be healthier. It's going to grow and change as new products get developed. The process we use for stripping polyphenols out of agricultural products is an amazing process that wasn't around a few years ago. The technology is going to grow, too. It's not going to just be that new foods are found, it's going to be the technology to get the nutrients from those foods. It's all growing.

The last question I had is, what separates good tea from great tea?
It depends what the consumer wants. The tea that we provide is not the biggest selling tea in the country. The biggest sellers would be Nestea, which if you ask me is more of a tea drink than a real tea, but they sell more of it than anyone else. That's junk, you might as well be drinking a Coke.

So the concept of what good tea is or what great tea is continues to change. Great tea, in the eyes of a tea taster or a taste buyer would be more like the high end stuff from India and Indonesia that mostly goes to the European market. Most of the great teas don't come to the United States. But that's through the eyes of a connoissuer.

Great tea in the southeast, which we provide a ton of, is your standard sweetened black tea with sugar, and that's great in the southeast. So, it means different things to different people.

+ The Debate on High Fructose Corn Syrup

The jury is still not out. In fact, the trial over High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has only just begun. The low-cost sugar substitute has been under severe scrutiny ever since Barry M. Bopkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina, and George A. Bray, a professor of medicine at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., published their ideas on the possible link between HFCS and America's obesity problem in 2004. The coincidence is astounding: just as HFCS is quickly adopted by many food industries in the early 1980's, the American obesity rates doubled after being relatively flat for the preceeding 20 years. But is high fructose corn syrup to blame, or is it something more nuanced? The New York Times took on the question in 2006 in the article "A Sweetener with a Bad Rap", and found that the HFCS industry was fighting an image battle that was essentially baseless; almost fear mongering.

"There's no substantial evidence to support the idea that high-fructose corn syrup is somehow responsible for obesity," said Dr. Walter Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent proponent of healthy diets. "If there was no high-fructose corn syrup, I don't think we would see a change in anything important. I think there's this overreaction."

The article explores a number of misconceptions about what exactly HFCS is, how it is processed, how it's used in a variety of products and even discusses how it is able to garnish the sought after 'Natural' label by the FDA. Though many consumers of organic and natural foods around the world have made up their minds to stay far away from the nearly ubiquitous ingredient, many in the industry are hoping that they take another look. Recently, the Corn Refiners Association put up their own defense website HFCSfacts.com giving a glowing review and debunking many of the criticisms that have come their way.

Still, it is an astounding coincidence in a world that is searching for quick answers and even quicker solutions. Another fact I was amazed by (the amount that we consume on a yearly basis) illustrates the economic despair that has the HFCS industry scrambling for answers to their own image problem...

Annual per capita consumption of the sweetener is down 7 percent, to 59.2 pounds in 2005, from its peak of 63.7 pounds in 1999, according to the Agriculture Department. ...this is attributable less to the negative perceptions of high-fructose corn syrup than to the popularity of drinks with fewer calories, such as diet soda, bottled water and sports drinks.

Read the whole article here...

+ Interview with WheyUP founder Erik Rothchild

It's no secret that beverage is an extremely competitive category, with incredibly fast-paced innovation and product development cycles. We think of it as a little crystal ball: if it's big in beverage, you can bet it will be big in other categories in the next year or two. And if there's any one trend or theme that's dominant in beverage, it's health and wellness. From functional energy drinks to organic teas and fair trade coffee, beverage is at the forefront.

One of the coolest products we've seen is WheyUP, an innovative protein energy drink with a light, juice-like consistency. Erik Rothchild, founder and owner of WheyUP, was kind enough to spend some time talking to us. Be sure to check out the WheyUP website for more information. We really appreciate Erik's time, and wish him the best with WheyUP.

First of all, tell us a little bit about where WheyUP came from, where we can get it, and all that.
WheyUP is a non-carbonated, sugar-free, energy drink that has 20 grams of whey protein in it. It's the first of it's kind that combines the benefits of two. I launched it in Phoenix, and it's been in a retailer called Hi Health that has 53 locations in Phoenix. It's become one of the fastest selling drinks in their 35-year history, it's really taken off. I'm testing it this month in the top 200 GNCs in the country. I've been in there for about four weeks, and every week the sales keep increasing. If the tests continue to go well, they'll increase the number of stores with WheyUP, and they have 3500 stores in the US. I also sell online through my website, as well as Bodybuilding.com, which is one of the biggest supplement resellers in the world. I also just finished a distribution deal with someone in Canada, and I'm in the process of doing a deal in Australia. So I'm starting to get some global attention.

"I originally intended it to be just a pre-workout drink, but it's turning into something with mass appeal. It's turned into a great diet drink, because it's like getting up in the morning and having a cup of coffee with a scoop of protein in it."

The way I came up with it was just in my kitchen. I'm an amateur boxer, and I'd train in the morning, and read in Muscle & Fitness magazine that they'd recommend 20 grams of protein before and after you work out. So I wanted to have protein for my workout at 5:30 AM. I'd take a blender, a sugar free energy drink, some strawberries for taste, and put a scoop of whey protein powder in there. For six months or so, I just blended up my own combination of a protein energy drink. Going into the stores, like GNC, I couldn't find anything like that, so I just figured I'd do it myself. A lot of people have asked me why nobody else did it first, and all I can say is, "I don't know!"

I originally intended it to be just a pre-workout drink, but it's turning into something with mass appeal. It's turned into a great diet drink, because it's like getting up in the morning and having a cup of coffee with a scoop of protein in it. It has 20 grams of protein, 1 gram of carbs, 90 calories, no fat, it's sugar-free, and in one shot you get protein and energy. So I'm hearing that a lot of people will have one for breakfast, and it takes them all the way to lunch.

What's the reaction been like so far to WheyUP?
The neat thing about it is that it's taken off in a very grassroots way. A lot of people have found out about me like you did, through the web or whatever, and they'll call me up and get on board. Right now I've got a few Olympic athletes that I'm endorsing, I've got a Paralympic athlete on the Mountain Dew tour that I'm sponsoring. He rides his wheelchair on the skateboard ramp on these events, and I've been sending him about 25 cases for every event up in the athlete's tent. He says the skaters are just freaking out over it, because all they're getting at these events is Mountain Dew and Pepsi, and these guys are athletes- they want something with protein in it.

I've got little pockets of MMA and UFC fighters that are drinking WheyUP. I've got a camp down in Athens, Georgia, called The Hardcore Gym, where Forrest Griffin came from. I've been talking to Adam Singer, he's a huge fan of WheyUP, and I think WheyUP is going to sponsor the Hardcore Gym.

Oh cool, they're good guys.
Yeah! When I first talked to Adam, I asked him what he thought of the drink. He said "Let me tell you how much I like it. I'm in the car right now drinking one, and I've got four empty ones on the floor of the car." I said, "Man, you are a fan- but you've gotta clean up your car!"

It seems like consumers have become more aware of protein in the last couple of years, and they're integrating it into their diets more than ever. What are your thoughts on that?
The one thing I definitely want to stress is that I'm by no means a scientist or a dietician. I'm just truly a guy who read stuff and was the first to put this combination together. But, I'll tell you that being in this industry for 16 or 17 months since I came up with this concept, I really believe that protein is the next "it" ingredient. You've got Accelerade, which is basically Gatorade with protein, you've got Special K's K20, a protein water, there's a protein soda. As you mentioned, more and more people are realizing the overall health benefits of whey protein.

For example, I have a lot of seniors here in Phoenix that are hooked on WheyUP because their doctors are recommending to their elderly patients that they consume more protein.

Yeah, it's good for offsetting osteoporosis.
It's good for that, and it helps maintain the deteriorating muscle mass that everyone goes through as they get older.

One of the unique things about WheyUP is its light consistency, as opposed to the shake-like consistency that you usually see in protein drinks. How has that played out for you?
Well, my original concept for WheyUP was in a 16 oz. can, because that's what all the other energy drinks are in. I was thinking it would fit in well at a convenience store or whatever, and I actually brought the first version out in like that. But like you said, and I didn't realize this at the time, once people who were familiar with protein drinks see the word "whey" on a can, they thought it was a thick shake because they couldn't see inside of it. So that's why I switched to a plastic bottle, so you can see the consistency right away.

Why did you choose whey protein, as opposed to rice, soy, casein, or any of the other proteins?
Whey is the most popular form of protein in the fitness industry. If you go into any GNC or health food store, the majority of what they sell is whey protein. The reason being, especially for a pre-workout drink, is that whey is the form that your body absorbs the most quickly. So it's ideal for a pre-workout drink, but if you were going to have protein before you went to bed, you'd want casein protein, because it absorbs the slowest.

Are you interested in developing other products with different kinds of protein or ingredients?
Yeah, sure. I'd like to do a powder form of WheyUP, so you can just mix it with water on your own, I'd like to do a natural version, an "extreme" version that has creatine for the ultimate pre-workout drink. Some people, maybe 1 in 20, don't like caffiene, so maybe I'll do a version with another stimulant.

"Protein is going to be found in a lot more mainstream drinks. [Y]ou're going to start seeing protein added to not just drinks, but all kinds of products."

The energy part of WheyUP is from B vitamins, right?
Yes, B-12, B-6, taurine, and some other things.

So pretty much the standard energy drink combo?
Right. But it's interesting, I'd like to do some research on this, because I hear it a lot, people who drink WheyUP say they don't get the same crash that they do from other energy drinks. There's two things that could explain that: First, it's not loaded with sugar like a lot of them are. Also, there's the protein, so you're body's digesting something.

In a lot of ways, beverage leads the rest of the food world in health & wellness trends. What are the big trends you see right now?
Well, to be honest, I don't know if I'm the best person to answer that question, because this is just something I came across myself by creating it in my kitchen. As far as someone who has 20 years of experience in the beverage industry, I don't. But I'll go back to what I said earlier: Protein is going to be found in a lot more mainstream drinks. Fortunately, I was first to market with this combination. But you're going to start seeing protein added to not just drinks, but all kinds of products.

WheyUP seems to primarily target a hardcore fitness enthusiast right now. What are the challenges there?
Well, I don't know that I'd say hardcore, but I definitely am targeting a core fitness enthusiast. But I'm finding that that ranges from 50 year old guys in the gym 3 days a week to bodybuilders that live by their supplements and workout schedule, to runners, bikers, skaters, a really wide spectrum of people in the fitness industry.

One of the toughest parts of working with enthusiast markets is getting into mainstream distribution channels without losing the credibility of the ethusiasts. Is that something you're concerned about?
I do see that as a challenge. I've thought about that, because I've had interest from Sam's, Wal-Mart, Target, and places like that which are very mainstream. But I'm starting to see more and more products like Muscle Milk, Lean Body, protein powders, bars, and things like that sold at Sam's Club. Those fitness people are shopping at Sam's, and I think it's the retailers that are reacting to consumer needs and the fitness lifestyle that people are adopting. The retailers are carrying more and more of those products, so I don't know that it's a negative for me to advertise in Muscle & Fitness but have that bodybuilder be able to buy WheyUP at Circle K when he goes to pump gas. It's becoming more and more acceptable for these fitness enthusiasts to find their products at mainstream retail.