Welcome to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. I am Roger. Today’s episode is all about the surging momentum and the movement of non-alcoholic beverages in hospitality operations. You might be surprised to know that 50 percent of all people are either cutting alcohol entirely from their beverage choices or cutting back and balancing their alcohol.

Nonalcoholic drinks with alcoholic drinks, perhaps on weekends. So it’s huge. It’s an opportunity. It’s marketing. You can curate specialty drink lists for beers and wines and spirits. But this is an episode that is all about that movement. With me today are Megan Koester, representing Go Brewing and Aficionado, which is a certification program for the AFNA movement, as well as Rachel Martin, who is with Oceana Wines.

It’s a wealth of information and it’s an opportunity not to be missed. You may know that we have a YouTube channel, so please subscribe. If you like what you’re seeing and hearing, please check it out on YouTube every single week’s episode, as well as following us on your favorite podcast player. And please, if you like our episodes, if you like the content, please leave us a review.

It’ll help other, other people. Owners and operators and hospitality professionals find us, and we’d be very appreciative if you left us a great review. So thanks so much. Now on with the episode.

You’re tuned in to the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast. Powerful ideas to rock your restaurant. Here’s your host, Roger Beaudoin.

Restaurants sell tons of fried food and your customers love it, but the hassles, hazards and mess of fryer oil, cleaning hoods and all that grease, well you can forget all that with restaurant technologies. They deliver your oil, filter it, monitor usage. Collect and recycle your waste cooking oil. Their Auto Mist system automates your hood and flue cleaning, eliminating the fire risk.

As a Restaurant Technologies customer, you’ll also save 10 15 percent in your insurance premiums. Plus, get a bonus for new customer referrals. Get started at rti inc. com or call 866 399 3639.

Listen, your restaurant wants more business. Birthdays bring more business. Not just more guests, but 40 percent higher check averages. Best of all, more birthdays happen Sunday through Thursday when you want more business. You can get an all done for you service that sends you all the birthday business.

Don’t lose birthdays to the competition. Go to jointhebirthdayclub.com/birthdayrockstar. It’s a piece of cake.

Welcome back, everyone. This is the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. So glad you’re with us. And Megan, Rachel, welcome to the show today. So glad you’re here. Thank

you so much, Roger. It’s great to be here. Yes, agreed.

Highly relevant topic today for restaurants and bars. We’re going to be talking all about the non alcoholic movement.

What’s going on with that, why you probably need to pay attention to this, and the ins and outs of having non alcoholic products on your menus, specialty cocktailists, all that kind of stuff. So let’s start with the movement and ladies jump in at any time. You can each give me perspective on your opinions or if one chooses to answer, that’s fine too.

But in general, how large What is this market of people that are seeking non alcoholic products, and how fast is this movement growing?

Over 50 percent of people are attempting to reduce or eliminate alcohol from their consumption, either from their daily lives or entirely. And the dry January is I guess you could say it’s like an expression of that.

It’s a way for people to reset and get back into alignment for the new year but they still want to socialize and go out and go to restaurants and bars and they want to be met where they are. So they would like to be As it’s a hospitality industry, so they would like to feel welcome in establishments.

For restaurants, it’s a real opportunity. Anytime there’s change or friction, that really is an opportunity to cater to your guests, and also to benefit from the margin that non alcoholic beverages provide.

Wow, 50%. I would not have guessed it was that large. That’s definitely huge. Anything to add to that, Megan?

Yeah, no, Rachel said it beautifully, I think in beer language, we call dry January our Super Bowl, that’s when in the NA beer space and being a veteran of beer, we always look forward to that month, but I think to align with what she said and amplify on that, not only is it become this, it’s a substitution play.

So for all of it, especially for this audience, I think as a restaurant brand, and you’re thinking about the environment that you’re trying to create, just like we’re ahead of trends in dining and food and wellness and lifestyle, this is treated the same way, but it’s behind the bar this time.

And it’s the biggest movement we’ve ever seen, which is why Rachel’s referring to this number of, 50 percent of people right now are considering substituting alcohol during their dining and other drinking occasions. Pretty regularly. So there’s real ways to quantify that, where I look at like real industry leaders, like Andy Ramage, who says something like there are 2 billion consumers globally that are what we call middle of the lane drink, middle lane drinkers.

They drink about four or five nights a week and maybe, maybe they’re drinking a little more on the weekends, but that number now is definitely more in their awareness and consciousness. And I would say those consumers are the consumers that we’re talking about and they’re making more mindful decisions, which gets down to why it’s important to understand who that demographic is.

How do we serve them? In the on premise and in venues and really the kind of that sweet spot of the audience we’re speaking to today. And what are those occasions we can meet them at? And I would just say if you can take anything away from our conversation today, this is a substitution play for that customer because they still drink alcohol.

So how do we best serve them and how do we meet them where they’re at? Rachel said.

Very interesting. Would you say that there was, I’m not sure stigma is the right word, but I think there were certain people that might feel uncomfortable going into a bar and ordering, a non alcoholic cocktail or whatnot if it didn’t look like it was a real cocktail or a real beer.

But now the packaging is blended. I know at least from the in beer and wine standpoint, the packaging is so important as selling a product in so many cases, whether it’s on a retail shelf or in a hospitality venue. But all of that has caught up, with this movement. And now people, will go into a place, they’ll order a non alcoholic drink, and no one will know the difference in most cases, right?

But before all this movement really took off, maybe some people felt a little hesitant to even patronize a place if they really didn’t want alcohol?

I think the greater issue is. how it’s presented on the menu. So if people are going to a restaurant and they are interested in a non alcoholic cocktail or a non alcoholic wine, if it’s hidden in the back or they have to ask for it and it’s not on the list, that makes them hesitant to do so and they’re going to order a coca cola or they’re going to order a water and that’s a missed opportunity.

So For restaurants really to optimize on this opportunity, they have to put these beverages front and center.

Makes perfect sense. We’re going to talk about marketing these things coming up, but that sort of touches on that. Thank you. How about different demographic groups? Is this sort of crossing all age groups and demographics and a wide variety of people now are, health conscious or they’re cutting back and they’re just looking for healthier alternatives?

Millennials are leading this movement, but it’s yes, they are, but it’s touching every single generation. Younger people in the Gen Z profile aren’t drinking like we used to in Gen X. I’m Gen X. And then, those Gen X drinkers, they’re re evaluating their relationship with alcohol because likely they were heavy drinkers when they were younger.

And then you have the baby boomers who are starting to re evaluate how long they want to live and be there for their grandchildren and what type of medications they might be taking because of their health and their age.

I can speak to that as well. I’m Gen X as well, and I actually cut back I don’t drink at all in the middle of the week now.

So I’m a Friday, Saturday guy, and the rest of the week, That’s right. And thanks for joining us. It’s been great. I think it’s just it’s just the desire to share. And I think that’s a part of a lifestyle thing. You’d have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner and it’d be an everyday thing.

And it would be moderation. You wouldn’t overdo it. Maybe on the weekends you’d have two or three, but now it’s just weekends only. I think that’s part of it, so I’m contributing to that to some extent. Thank you. Yeah, right? So this is important because there’s a huge group of people that still are looking for hospitality experiences and dining out.

And restaurants and bars really need to pay attention to this and almost curate a selection of products to satisfy this market, wouldn’t you say?

People who are drinking less are normal people. They’re you and me. So it’s not this a part of society that we can other. It’s all of us who are doing this.

And I’d like to mention that Dry January isn’t a singular experience. It’s just looked at as a kickoff for the rest of the year. But people are changing their drinking habits year long. Megan, do you want to elaborate on

that? Yeah, that’s such, that is such a great point. I think just pulling that all together, we talk about, when I talk about demographics, I immediately start thinking about how does that tie to our occasions, right?

Like, when are we integrating this? So when I think about the AF and NA, I call it the AFNA category, alcohol free and non alcoholic, which to me encompasses NA beer, NA wine, NA spirits that zero proof cocktail space. It also encompasses THC infused or functional beverages. So when we think about all of those and how those relate to Roger, what you’re talking about, that integrated experience, that’s what people are looking for.

That’s why the brand component of only what we do, but what the restaurant side does and the hospitality side provides. But so I go back to that. So we’ve got through the demographic now we know it’s being driven by millennials with the revenue right now, but we know that when we look at.

And then the legal drinking age category and people that are young or turning 21, that their habits have changed. So all of those folks are if you want to bucket them in a few different ways, you might think of okay about half that category or more is substituting, right?

They’re just saying, tonight, I’m not going to have alcohol, I’m going to have something else. So that’s one way of thinking about it. Some are Like me, maybe they’re totally abstaining from alcohol. So we want to make sure that we’ve like to Rachel’s earlier point, how are we marketing to them on the menu?

Are you appealing to that millennial drinker? Or, are you hiding it? Maybe not promoting it? Or we could really get to some of the things that grind my gears like that. calling them mocktails versus like, how do we want to create that image or reduce that stigma and educate on what those price points should be?

Because to me, a mocktail probably is, has a Shirley Temple on it. And I would get that from my daughter who’s six, but I wouldn’t get that for myself. I’m looking in a different area of the menu. So I really encourage people to think about that. So we go back to maybe you’re substituting, maybe you’re abstaining, maybe you’re trialing.

So maybe you’re the type of person that. Because of that experience, and we see this in NA, your, it’s 70, especially NA wine and beer in particular, so it’s great that Rachel’s here, 70 percent of those consumers, this is an impulse purchase for them. So being on the menu is absolutely critical if we want to reach those folks, especially in that kind of substituting or trialing, right?

Definitely for the abstainers, because you’re going to lose them to a lesser product, or maybe they won’t, will choose not to come to you now, because This is less optional than it was before. And finally, this kind of cool, and I like to stick it on the end, group called Zebra Striping which are people that are integrating non alcoholic and alcohol free drinks into the same drinking session as alcoholic drinks.

So when we talk about experience. There’s a whole lot of ideas right there in terms of like, how do we promote? How do we make the right brand placements? How do we build the right accretive assortment for the AF& A category? And I think that’s where strong brands really come in as well as that menu curation piece and really understanding things like seasonality of these beverages and, how to tie them with food.

And to Rachel’s best earlier point is we, even though dry January is a big month for us, What we find is we don’t have that we don’t have that disintegration between big months and then the rest of the year. These become, these is where you’re creating those experiences and people will continue to integrate them into their drinking occasions throughout the rest of the year.

Great explanation. I think I heard the word pairing a second ago. Are restaurants and bars starting to pair certain N. A. Alcohol free products with the menus?

Yes they are. And in fact, I’m a wine producer and I make wines that are traditional non-alcoholic and ultra low, 3.5% alcohol.

And next weekend I’ll be in Missouri at Big Cedar Lodge giving a wine dinner. with all of these wines paired with the five course menu. And that’s another thing to bring up is when people are looking to go out dining, but they’re not drinking alcohol, it really is wine that is that connector to food.

And when there’s not a non alcoholic wine on the list, people are, Put in a position where they have to go without. And it’s just simply unnecessary.

As long as we’re talking about wine for a second, you read the bottle of any typical bottle of wine and I’m not a producer, but you certainly are.

And you understand this and sulfites on the label. Are any products lacking sulfites? Explain what sulfites are exactly.

Sure. Sulfites are naturally occurring in wine. So if you’re going to see anything that doesn’t have sulfites, it says no added sulfites and sulfites are preservative to make sure that your wine doesn’t get spoiled during the aging process.

So that’s why sulfites are added. If you have a certified organic wine, you can be sure that there are no additional sulfites added to those wines. That’s what the organic certification means. But all wines have naturally occurring sulfites, no matter if they’re alcoholic or not.

Thank you for explaining that.

Let’s talk about margins. That came up a little while ago. How do these products stack up in terms of profitability against traditionally alcoholic, spirits, beers, and wines?

I would say they’re like and it’s more expensive to produce non alcoholic wines and traditional wines. That’s because there’s an extra step in removing the alcohol, but it’s also because your volume is reduced.

Simply if you do the math, if you’re removing 13 percent of the volume, which is alcohol, from the wine that you have in tank or in barrel your costs are going up by at least that percentage. So you have to make sure that when you’re pricing your products you’re adding enough padding so that you have profitability.

And the restaurants You know, that’s up to them to, if they’re going to add a non alcoholic wine on their list, they can treat it just like any other alcoholic beverage and apply the same the same multiplier as far as listing that on the menu.

Fantastic. Very good. Would you each take time and explain flavor profiles and tastes in comparison to alcoholic beers and wines?

I’d love to, actually. The, no, I make non alcoholic wine. My company is called Oceano Zero and it’s the first luxury single vineyard, single vintage non alcoholic wine in the market. And I released that in 2023. And the reason that I did it was because I didn’t find any non alcoholic wines available that really spoke about I’m going the vineyard and all of the beautiful things that we love about wine.

Now when you remove the alcohol, you’re removing the contribution of the alcohol to the beverage, which is body, And also it’s a flavor delivery service, an aroma delivery service. So it easily brings those esters and compounds out of solution so that you can smell them. That is a contribution of alcohol.

So when you’re making a non alcoholic wine like we do, which is the highest quality possible, I’m Harvesting specifically, knowing these wines are going to be non alcoholic, I’m working them in the cellar to build texture independent of the alcohol so that when you remove it, it still has body. And then once you remove the alcohol, you have decisions to make, and that is How am I either going to build the body of the wine or is their body already there?

Now when you’re removing that alcohol, remember you’re removing all of the calories and all of the sweetness and so you have to balance that in some way. On non alcoholic labels, this is no longer a wine product and it’s handled by the FDA instead of the TTB. So you have the ingredients listed, which is wonderful.

And if you understand how to read a non alcoholic wine label, you can gather much information about what you’re going to taste in that wine. And so we use a little bit of cane sugar to balance the lack of sweetness in the wine, but we do so in such a minute way that our wines are only five calories per glass.

So it’s, which is, just the smallest portion you could ever imagine compared to a traditional wine. So the, and then you have tannins and just how the whole matrix works together. And that’s where real, Talent, gift, and know how comes in when producing a non alcoholic wine. And when you see non alcoholic wines with high price tags, you understand how much work went into that.

It’s not just the wine itself, but all the experience of the makers, all the tens of years of experience, how to make the wines in that way. So they do taste different, and that’s for many different reasons. First, it’s about the quality of the wine before the alcohol is removed, and then how the wine is treated once the alcohol is removed.

And that’s what the AFNA Certified Program is all about, and I’m so excited that I am authoring the AFNA Certified Wine Program.

Are your varietals limited to certain, grape varieties right now? Is it expanding? Is everything available? If I like a petite Syrah or a Rioja or a Cabernet or a Merlot, is it all?

Or even the whites? Can I get what I’m used to getting? in non alcoholic

wine? Not all grape varieties are made for non alcoholic wine. More of the lower tannin wines show better. The aromatic white varieties show better in a non alcoholic expression. I do believe that will change as the technology innovates of alcohol removal and aroma recovery.

But for example, I have a Syrah that I produce and it’s a tannic wine and it’s delicious. I decided not to remove all of the alcohol. I left three and a half percent of the alcohol in that wine. It’s what I call ultra low. So that balance is that tiny bit of alcohol is balancing that robust tannin, that like beast of a wine that you might enjoy.

So there’s different ways to apply these processes for different varieties.

And you can control the alcohol content. Does it go down to trace amounts? Does it completely eliminate it if you want to? How far do you go with these?

Once a wine has had alcohol in it, you’re all, no matter how much you remove, there will always be trace amounts of alcohol.

It’s going to be lower than kombucha. It’s going to be lower than a loaf of bread. It’s going to be lower than a ripe banana. So I wouldn’t worry about. Once it’s less than 0. 5%, you’re safe to drink that.

And you can see why when are authoring certification programs, you want someone like Rachel at the head of the, of wine as I am in beer.

I’ve spent 20 years in the beer, in the brewing industry, Spent 10 years with a major producer. I worked for Samuel Adams, the Boston Beer Company. I, we did have a lot of innovation and they really put us in that foundation of understanding the process and education. So that really helped me for where I ended up.

So I’m very grateful for that opportunity. And education was the cornerstone of how we delivered these to market. So I go back to even the basics from beverage alcohol, when you’re selling a premium product. It’s all about quality. So it starts there. Rachel touched on that. To get a little more specific with the nuances in beer, because it is a little bit different.

We have more complex ingredients. We have, a really a different process for going about that. Not to mention there’s different technologies that kind of allow you to go either way. In wine I feel like you might, they might be a little bit more limited, but again Rachel could speak to that, but she nailed it on what does ethanol contribute.

So I think that no matter what you’re, when you’re sampling a person that’s new to the category, you have to recognize there’s going to be Especially in the American market where it’s still a lot of discovery. There’s going to be that moment where people are like, this is different, but there’s that familiarity.

And I think that’s where the great brands that are in the space now are having the most success, right? They are able to achieve a very high quality product. This goes back to like pricing, it is more expensive to make these because we don’t have that natural protection of ethanol in the beverate so we lose that.

We have to add that back in through pasteurization or chemical additives, like you mentioned earlier, that are sometimes used for that shelf stability. That all of those processes come with some sort of impact on flavor, not to mention You have the difference of a beverage with less alcohol. So in our case, what we really do, and I actually have some of our products here, cause I really do to show them, like the packaging and everything.

It’s beautiful. And to get to a finished product, this is actually a German style Pilsner that I’m holding. It’s called Sunbeam. I now work for Go Brewing and I’m doing education and training. They specialize in non alcoholic beer. So beers brewed below 0. 5 percent alcohol. And one of the great things about go is their desire to chase quality by using a traditional methodology or traditional process.

So instead of making a full flavored alcoholic beer and then investing in removing the alcohol and dealing with the consequences of having to cover up that process technology, which can add heat and stress to your beer. We really don’t want that in beer. It’s like liquid bread. So it’s pretty delicate and really ideally consumed, pretty quickly after it’s produced.

But we’ve got these wonderful range of products. This particular beer is a German pilsner. It is brewed with German malt. It’s brewed with German tetanang hops, which are a noble rare hop found in these growing regions in Germany that are often, seven generations of farms that have produced these.

So we’re still taking that same approach. And even Traditional beer yeast in some cases, but it’s about controlling that fermentation outcome, which is part of your quality. We do 15 checks in our laboratory, including sensory checks for every batch of beer that we produce. And that’s beyond even, very large international breweries that I’ve since consulted with.

I spent 10 years also in beverage innovation in the hops industry. Chasing sustainable extracts, commercializing products and building brands with breweries all over the world. And most of them were focused on non alcoholic production because since 2015, it’s been the largest focus. Some of the largest breweries in the world have said that 20 to 25 percent of their global revenue will come from NA by 2030.

So I think we have to, when we talk about. Think about the differences in flavor. We think about the meaning that it’s having mainstream and how a lot of producers are having to integrate CapEx or make process changes in order to be able to produce like award winning, consistent products that consumers will come back to because the idea is, and our zero party data tells us this, consumers want something familiar.

They want something that’s like. Especially millennials, right? That group in particular I think is very important to consider. That’s an aging craft beer consumer, in my case, that’s integrating N. A. beer, which is a little bit different in its flavor profile, as Rachel mentioned. We have differences, in ours as well, and I won’t go into those as at the moment, but if you want to geek out on that’s why these certifications and educations are important, like AFNA beer certified or even cannabis beverage certified, because quality matters for functional and N.

1. Mostly because we lack the protection, natural protection of alcohol. So we have to consider that.

Let me ask you both. That was an excellent explanation. Also, it’s giving us a deep dive into the nuances of product. Let’s take the average beer or wine drinker, not a connoisseur, just someone who enjoys a glass of wine or a beer.

Not brewmaster, and we did a blind taste test with a cross section of people. Could they tell the difference between the average beer and the average non alcoholic product, and the same with the wine? Is it a real differentiation,

Every guest in your restaurant sees your menu. It’s your most important and effective marketing tool, and every impression counts. TerraSlate not only provides easy to clean, waterproof, rip stop, antimicrobial menus that last, they also work with you to design menus that sell. It’s time for a new menu!

Get Terraslate with a super fast one day turnaround and free overnight shipping. Go to terraslate. com. That’s spelled T E R R A S L A T E dot com.

it’s becoming more and more similar.

I would say with sparkling non alcoholic wine. Because it’s easier to deliver mouthfeel with CO2 and non alcoholic white wines are harder to determine whether they have alcohol in them or not. Red wines have been like the holy grail, like everyone’s searching for the best red non alcoholic wine.

We believe that we deliver that with Oceano Zero. And we have been told that no, they cannot determine the difference if there is alcohol in our red wines or not. Is that the average non alcoholic red wine? No, yet it’s becoming more and more so as brands and wineries are putting the same care and money into producing their non alcoholic wines like their alcoholic counterparts.

Fantastic. Thanks for answering that, Rachel. Two questions for you, Megan. Right now, is there a gluten free non alcoholic beer yet?

Yeah, absolutely, there is. I was actually just drinking one earlier today, so we’d actually make it a gluten free non alcoholic beer, which we saw quite a bit of demand for I think as you look at the wellness category, Joe Chura is our founder, he was a successful tech entrepreneur, but He’s that regular average guy you’re talking about.

That’s what I love about Go Brewing, and I particularly love about working with Joe, is not only is he brilliant, he’s got a lot of great ideas about how to take NA to market because he knows technology, but he’s a guy from the Midwest who likes beer, so he not only broadened that expectation that our beers were supposed to taste exactly like Their alcoholic counterparts and 80 percent of my customers often can’t tell with some of our beers that they don’t have alcohol in them.

But some of that also allowed us to look at the range. We make 30, over 30 different beers right now. We have a tap room where people can come and drink any beer on draft and really have that experience as you talked about. And gluten free was one of the things that our consumers who, you know, about 40 to 45 percent of our drinkers are very interested in being.

Being athletic, whether it’s recreational or something they take more seriously, maybe it’s a hobby or something that are actually competing in. And I think there is a tie to that health and wellness aspect and people looking at what they eat and now that we think about what they drink, just like the sugar content.

And I’ll just say this, not only was gluten one of the things, but just any in general. I’ve started to see more requests about the nutritional content, and you can find all that on our website at at gobrewing. But, there’s seven calories per gram of alcohol. And so an average, Pilsner beer, 100 of those calories might come from alcohol.

And when you look at our beers, when we’re able to craft them as they are meant to taste like the original form, you can now enjoy that, like Rachel said for a very, for a much lower amount of calories. And that guiltless aspect of it, I think, is what people are just They’re clamoring for it.

How good does it feel to have a great glass of wine or a delicious pilsner or a pale ale that’s crafted gluten free that’s under 50 calories and has one gram of sugar? And I think that is just the most amazing thing. And I probably could have integrated NA a lot easier in my life had those options have been around 20 years ago.

Probably would have made a few different decisions in my life had those been around, but that’s why we’re here because this is a story of transformation. And I think the greatest innovation in technology in this lies in the ability to deliver that exact same experience. So it’s process modification and then maniacal focus on quality.

And that’s why you’re allowed to make. really cool gluten free beers. In ours, we’re using buckwheat, millet, and oats. But it’s really the fact that we have that pasteurization capability that we’re able to, to me, I’ve never had a gluten free beer that tasted good until this one. And it also happens to be non alcoholic.

So that product is doing really well for us, especially in whole foods. Where that natural segment shopper is. Yeah. So I actually was sampling that product at Whole Foods in Chicago over the weekend because I, it’s by O’Hare airport. There’s just a lot of different folks coming through and I wanted to get an opportunity to engage with them.

And again, I don’t necessarily advertise the NA piece. I give it to them. We talk about it and we talk about the beer aspects. And so many people were immediately recognizing that innovation, that this tastes just like beer. I wouldn’t have known, and this is great. So I think that and actually I have another one here that I was just sipping on earlier.

This is a very similar, this is an amber beer. This one is also gluten free. So this one, we use water, we use millet, oats, and corn, but we are also adding ashwagandha and l theanine. Again, I’m getting into some compounds here that are better for you, wellness oriented, and I think that gluten free is right up there with what that drinker’s looking for right now in a finished product.

This is really the future, this is the future of drinking and this is what your children’s children are going to be drinking. This is going to be their lives. So exciting. And I’d like to say that this is an nascent movement because there currently are RFPs open for non alcoholic beverages, including non alcoholic wines, at Legal Seafoods, Smith Walensky, and Strega.

And there are mandates for non alcoholic beverages on, for Major Food Group, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott. So this is something people really need to pay attention to and start getting trained for.

Yeah, we’re going to talk about certifications in a moment, but let’s talk about the THC infused products as well, and cannabis beers.

This is all brand new, isn’t it? And it’s exploding as well.

Yeah, I’ve got more, but guess what? I have more. Yeah we actually have just gotten into that space ourself. Go Brewing is producing, this is actually also a gluten free product, so it’s a brew crafted as a golden pale, so meant to give you that familiarity of drinking like a crisp, pale ale, and it’s infused with three milligrams of THC.

And three milligrams of CBD. So it’s really this concept now of beverage being a great delivery system for micro doses of cannabis in beverage. We’ve seen that category already valued at potentially over 100 million in the United States. And I think it’s just, it’s very hard to measure right now because.

We could do a whole episode just on the regulatory challenges of these up and coming categories, but it just bridges this discussion. I was just talking about things like L theanine and ashwagandha. When you talk about THC and CBD, you’re talking about compounds that also provide an altered experience of consciousness for many people, or an altered experience of perception, maybe much like alcohol does.

And I think that there’s, that is something that we want to reduce the stigma on because when we talk about THC and cannabis and marijuana, there is stigma already associated with what we perceive those things to be. So again, education is really important. I was so excited when, again, Joe sees Innovation at Go and the entire team there is working really hard to deliver something that the consumer is asking for.

So we took that notion of give something that they’re very familiar with in flavor and then adding these functional components and ingredients to them that are going to enhance that drinking experience. But we get to The education piece, and so that is when you, we think about these have not been familiar formats for people in the past, particularly for cannabis, and we’re going around we’re talking about regulatory usage of hemp derived THC in the case of Easy Man which is this new product from Go!

So when you’re talking about those kind of components, what I find is three quarters of the people I interact with don’t know the difference between hemp and marijuana. And so when I think about that, as we get into this, it’s so new that it really does require more more of a pioneer mindset right now for anybody in the restaurant field thinking about it.

But I am seeing the demand even for the larger customers, particularly in the off premise right now. So liquor stores. Some higher end grocery stores are heavily focused on THC beverage, and in some cases in the liquor store segment, we’re seeing 20 percent of store sales being attributed to hemp derived THC beverage.

I think for the on premise, for the restaurant brands that are out there is this a real thing? It is. There are complexities with it, but it is something that we do foresee coming, and the consumer’s already doing it, and quite frankly, they’ve already been doing it, as Rachel mentioned, for a long time.

Now we’re just finding different formats to introduce educate, and give them that experience.

CBD has been known to have certain healing properties or medicinal uses. Would you say there is a health benefit to those products? Is it even measurable?

Yeah I’m not a, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not a doctor.

So I think I have to preface it with that, given that we’re talking about the, these particular compounds, but I can tell you in my research, and we address this in the cannabis beverage certification that we give at Aficionado, we have certified a lot of really amazing and intelligent people in the industry and are working with a lot of the big groups that are lobbying and, going on the Hill in DC.

And they’re taking our training with them to put it out in front of people, because that’s exactly the questions that the regulators are asking. What exactly does this do? We need a refresher and, but historically speaking, for thousands of years the cannabis plant has been used for medicinal purposes.

So I would say take a look at the history. But yeah, generally speaking, and when we talk about medical, We would often talk about CBD’s ability to be anti inflammatory. There’s neuro, anti inflammatory compounds, antioxidant compounds. So it’s a very powerful plant with, hundreds and hundreds of compounds in it.

So you’re, we’re talking about CBD and THC, which are two small. Components of a plant full of many more. So we’re just, we haven’t even learned them all yet. So we’re starting to look at these, isolate them at the molecular level. But what we have found is historically there’s been application it’s very relaxing, which is why when you combine it in a beverage, you can create a relaxing experience for people that they can control.

And that’s one difficult thing is when you’re. We know how a 5 percent ABV drink might feel if we have it as an adult. You may not know how a three milligram THC and CBD beverage might impact your, how you feel and what that experience can be. So that’s why low, we say start low and slow.

That’s why we want to reintegrate it into people’s experience in that discovery phase. in these types of formats so that it’s something that’s manageable for them, that’s uplifting, and that can be that true additional functional beverage option for people. But it’s got a great history. I actually see, on a quick geek outlook, I see the next 20 years as cannabinoids major cannabinoids and minor cannabinoids become more understood.

They can disrupt the energy drink industry. They can disrupt the focus drink industry. And all of these things will eventually make themselves, into the coffee shop realm. Wherever we go to, get these kinds of, have these kinds of experiences or get the effect that we’re looking for we’ll find a way and they will integrate them into these everyday everyday components.

But I certainly find that regular doses of these things have improved my life and have also helped me, live a really great, more mindful relationship with drinks after I moderated my own relationship with alcohol and started drinking less. This definitely plays a really good role.

So CBD alone, but combined with THC, you get this great entourage effect and I’m excited for people to learn and experience that.

Any legalities right now, or are you allowed to sell this in any state, or is it limited to only states that have legalized cannabis products? Where does that stand? Yeah, the

regulatory piece is the most complex piece.

I could tell you right now about the 30 something states where it is allowed to do the hemp derived THC that I’m talking about which is not sold in a dispensary, right? We’re talking about what’s allowed under the 2018 farm bill, but by the I told you all of that, it would change by tonight.

So what I tell people is it, this is a very interesting and dynamic category with a lot of potential, but it’s still very much a gray area. So if it’s something that you’re thinking about looking into, definitely look at your own state and local regulations, reach out to a distributor, reach out to organizations like the Coalition for Adult Beverage Alternatives, CABA, or the Hemp Beverage Alliance.

Those are trade organizations exist because that’s where those suppliers are going and they’re. giving that information, and they’re talking to they’re lobbying and educating our regulatory agents out there, the folks that are making the laws, basically. Yeah, it’s going to be interesting.

I could, we could talk about it all day, but there are very strict regulations by state, even how you can consume them and purchase them, what’s the legal, Dose per package and all of those fun things, but what I would tell particularly your listeners, Roger, is just look into the microdosed THC beverages, things under five milligrams, if you’re thinking about getting into it, that’s the great place to start.

And there’s a plethora of resources out there growing quickly on top of our certification to help people feel comfortable with understanding the landscape.

Fantastic. Let’s wrap up with talking about certifications and why that’s important to our audience.

 I think it’s important in order to be able to procure an assortment of beverages of non alcoholic wines in particular, and to be able to understand the value proposition in each wine that you may consider that is on your list, and be able to communicate that to your customer.

That’s very important. And then, as far as If you look into distribution, for example, how are you going to present these beverages to your restaurant accounts? So it goes down the chain of education from the producer, to the distributor, to the account, to the end consumer. So that’s why I think it’s extremely important.

And there is, More and more non alcoholic wines entering the marketplace domestic and international. I was perusing the USPTO trademark office looking for all the new trademarks that were coming on, and it’s amazing how many non alcoholic wines are coming into the U. S. So it’s important with all this added complexities to really have a grasp on the landscape.

Competition’s heating up for Oceania as well? Yes,

it is. How do you feel about that, Rachel? Yeah, better

for everyone.

Listen, It’s a good thing it’s

rising tide.

It’s all about solving consumer problems, and it’s all about adding complexity to our space, which adds to credibility of these beverages in programs that include alcohol.

Wonderful. Anything else you want to share? We’ve covered a lot of ground today.

Yeah, I think

I’m

good. Yeah, I would just add to Rachel, when I founded Aficionado a couple of years ago, it was just a really great inspiration. It was something that was brought out of just my own transformation and faith and figuring out how does a dinosaur that’s been in the industry for 20 years like me remain relevant.

And it truly became my calling, and so the purpose of doing, the value and certification has always lied in equipping, that equipment of the know how. Nothing feels better than going and getting great service from somebody who knows what they’re talking about. But we know the other side of that.

Why invest? If you want to convert that revenue opportunity and you want to convert the biggest revenue opportunity, you probably want, something like a certification, maybe a lapel pin, maybe some sort of marker for your team that you have that breadth of knowledge, because it’s the easiest way to convert it.

And then everybody in your value chain Is a line speaking the same language, understands the opportunity, but also the pitfalls and everybody’s set up for success. So it’s a minor, for us, we really wanted to give something that was accessible that could help Dylan behind the bar all the way to Roger, the CEO of the, the largest chains in the world could utilize to improve customer experience and really just unlock those increased revenues.

And uplevel hospitality at the same time.

That’s right.

Way to go, ladies. Thank you so much for being great guests on the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you, Roger.

That was the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. Thanks so much to our audience for tuning in. Thank you to the sponsors of this week’s show. Can’t wait to see y’all next time.

Stay tuned, stay well, and we will see you then.

People go to restaurants for lots of reasons, for fun, celebration, for family, for lifestyle. What the customer doesn’t know is the thousands of details it takes to run a great restaurant. This is a high risk, high fail business. It’s hard to find great staff, costs are rising and profits are disappearing.

It’s a treacherous road and smart operators need a professional guide. I’m Roger. I’ve started many highly successful, high profit restaurants I’m passionate about helping other owners and managers not just succeed, but knock it out of the park. I created a game changing system and it’s filled with everything I’ve learned in over 20 years running super profitable, super fun restaurants.

Everything from creating high profit menu items and cost controls, to staff training where your teams serve and sell, to marketing hooks, money maximizing tips and efficiencies across your operation. What does this mean to you? More money to invest in your restaurant, to hire a management team, time freedom and peace of mind.

You don’t just want to run a restaurant, you want to dominate your competition and create a lasting legacy. Join the Academy and I’ll show you how it’s done.

Thanks for listening to the Restaurant Rockstars podcast. For lots of great resources, head over to restaurantrockstars. com. See you next time.

Learn the Top 3 Restaurant Profit Killers and how to fix them FREE DOWNLOAD: https://restaurantrockstars.com/profits/

The Profit Maximizer – A Mini-Masterclass in Maximizing Restaurant Profits: https://restaurantrockstars.com/sp/restaurant-profits/

The Restaurant Academy Training System – Everything you & your team need to know to CRUSH IT in the restaurant biz:  https://restaurantrockstars.com/joinacademy

Connect with us on Social Media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roger-beaudoin-21590016

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/restaurantrockstars/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/restaurantrockstars

X: https://twitter.com/RestaurantRock1

Subscribe to the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast:

iTunes – https://apple.co/2WaKyqV

Spotify – https://spoti.fi/3xGuOd0

Google – https://bit.ly/2VM10P1

Stitcher – https://bit.ly/3iFGAAb

Soundcloud – https://bit.ly/3lYBhho

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@RestaurantRockstars

Ask Roger a Question or Share a Restaurant story with us:

https://www.speakpipe.com/RestaurantRockstars