De La Calle - Launching a Tepache Brand

Jordan Buckner: [00:00:00] Joining me today is Alex Matthews, who's the co founder and CEO of De La Calle, a brand that sprang into Pache, which is a fermented pineapple drink with a root stating back to pre Columbian Mexico to the forefront of the beverage industry. Alex's journey is one of passion, innovation, and really a deep respect for that cultural heritage.

We'll dive into how Alex discovered Tepache, the changes he faced in bringing this beverage to market in the U. S. and beyond, and how Delicae has grown to become a beloved brand. So from navigating the complexities of figuring out their fermentation to building a brand that honors its cultural origins, Alex's story is really a testament to the power of perseverance and creativity.

So Alex, welcome to the show today. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. So I'd love for you to give a little bit of background on how De La Calle got started and from the beginning. 

Alex Matthews: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. De La Calle. So I've been in the food and beverage industry for really since 2010 and my first.

Yeah. foray [00:01:00] really was starting a cold pressed juice brand called Juice Served Here. And you know, , we ran that for about five years and really that was where I cut my teeth on you know, starting my own brand you know, building it, branding it, funding it, staffing it growing it and all the, all the sort of trials and tribulations that come with but it was really through that process you know, when we basically exited that company at the end of 2017 and I was sort of thinking about what to do next.

It was really the process of starting that business and the people I met and that really led me to that sort of springboard to start something else. But the first thing I did actually was start Here Studio which is my agency we're kind of a destination for consumer innovation. And At the beginning of 2018 we started here studio with the vision of really working with like-minded individuals, but on all things creative.

So, you know, my passions in life are food and music and design. And I, you know, I have , a young [00:02:00] family. As well, but my, you know, the big thrust for me professionally has always been around those topics. And so here really was like a selfish pursuit of those things that I'd love, right?

So, you know, wanting to work with food and beverage brands, hospitality wanted to be, you know, working on exciting design and so that's kind of how Here Studios started. The here in here studio was really from the last word of my last juice brand, which was called juice serve here. 

Jordan Buckner: I'm curious with here, right?

You're serving, you want to help , other founders and other brands. Did you get to a point where you were doing that? You said like, gosh, I really want to get into like making my own stuff again. 

Alex Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I mean. we did it for about two years and worked with some amazing brands a lot, you know, during that time brands that people, listeners to your show are probably really familiar with.

And yeah, really like one of the guys I met through my last juice business and he has a private accuracy firm in Connecticut called Carp [00:03:00] Riley. And I'd been working with some of their portfolio companies on design, like Sprinkles Cupcakes and Rowdy Mermaid Kombucha and yeah, a string of other brands, really.

And Alan and I were talking and he said, you know what, you know, why don't we do something else? And he'd invested in my previous juice company. So I said, like, let's get together and just sort of talk about our ideas. So we met up for lunch me, Alan, and Alan brought a friend of his, Nate Patina.

And Nate was, you know, basically at Kavita was there at the beginning and saw the business all the way through to exit to Pepsi. And then after that went and ran Core Walter for Lance Collins. And you know, he saw that brand through to exit to KDP. So Nate He's a real beverage guy and has done pretty much his whole career in beverage.

And so Nate had a beverage consulting company, Alan Karp with a private accuracy firm and Alex with sort of, you know, here studio and, you know the sort of creative, you know, CEO, team [00:04:00] building. So, you know, I'm the guy to kind of take it to market. So we sat down to lunch and we all brought our ideas to the table.

And one of the ideas we shared was about worldly foods and how, you know, there's lots of foods around the world that aren't necessarily, you know, Celebrated in the United States. And certainly, you know, , my dad actually grew up in Africa and he would always talk about this sort of fermented coconut drink called pawpaw and that served in the streets there and in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, that those areas.

And so I was talking about that and how I'd been to Mexico and I'd had like, Pulque and Taquino and Tepache and some others, and Naples, some stories with him about things that are happening in Japan. And so we all kind of were, it was a melting pot of ideas really. And we kept coming back to, you know, Kombucha as a category had sort of flatlined and was starting to decline.

And we thought, well, if there was a you know an offer to take market share from Kombucha , could we be, you know, potentially, you know, an offer. So We started coming back to, to [00:05:00] pate, and it was fermented, made in Mexico and they actually, well, he was at Covita he actually had a guy that worked for him there called Rafael, who's Mexican and Rafael, like many Mexican families have had recipes passed down through his abuela 

and then, you know, his parents and so, you know, whether it's masa or it's, you know, a tepache recipe or if it's a, you know, a mole recipe there's this generational handing down of these traditions. And so Rafa knew how to make tepache and so we had him come in and we met him and he made us tepache.

We loved it. But we really didn't have a full reference point. So, we went to Mexico on, for an extended amount of time I've been down there so many times. Before thinking about Topache regular visitor to Mexico City and Oaxaca and Guadalajara and Jalisco and, yeah, really all over and had seen tepache in the street and from [00:06:00] street vendors and in the Circulo and things like that, like in the town squares.

And I just was really love the taste and , the idea of it, but wasn't thinking about it through the lens of maybe we could introduce this in America. So we went down to Mexico, we spent a lot of time there and we tasted hundreds of different tapaches. What's fascinating about tapache is that , it's really it's not a cool drink in Mexico.

It's actually very you, you have to hunt for it. It's in the markets. It's in pretty much away from the tourists. It's a lot, it's a very popular drink with, you know, first and second generation Mexicans. , and certainly like there's absolutely a. Love for the beverage, but it's definitely something that is , not a big tourist attraction and really just drunk by locals.

Jordan Buckner: I'm curious what was that kind of key insight that thought, even though it wasn't as popular, even, you know, as popular amongst some of the locals, but not as much of the tourists what were you thinking in terms of why that might make a good reason to bring it here, you know, to the U S and bring it in a form that [00:07:00] was kind of closer to like a kombucha or a soda?

I'm kind of curious, like what, what opportunity you saw there besides just kind of taking opportunity from from the kombucha set. 

Alex Matthews: Yeah, it was really an evolving thought until sort of after we launched, honestly. But I think that the lightbulb moment for us was here's this sort of super historic drink that's a thousand years old.

You can trace the history of tepache way back. Originally it was made with corn , not pineapple rind. and it's fermented, so it's got that gut health halo. But it was still very, you know, traditional, like served in a plastic bag with a straw and a rubber band and you hold it and, you know, so we thought, well, the low hanging fruit was we could modernize this, we could basically put it in a can and add carbonation and.

Celebrate the diverse sort of regionality of the flavors because most states, towns, cities have a different topache flavor. And so, you know, , we knew that there was infinite opportunities on the recipes. But where the [00:08:00] real excitement was there wasn't a topache on shelf in America anywhere.

And. You know, we could really put this, you know, in a more modern setting. And so this was sort of in around 2020. And I think Ollipop Poppy had maybe launched around that time. They were already on shelf. And we knew that there was an interest right away from retailers, Whole Foods immediately.

We showed it to them in 2020 and. They immediately said, we'd love to take this in and put you in, you know, three, four regions to launch. And we knew then, we were like, well, this is certainly an exciting story this fermented drink from Mexico. And, you know, we basically lowered the sugar from, was typically about 50 or 60 grams of sugar per 12 ounces.

To, you know under 10 you know, between five and eight. And so we knew that we could be in that conversation. I think the evolution that has taken place is that we realized that Mexican soda in the United States is actually more popular than we realize. There's brands in the market like Mexican Cola , Fanta, [00:09:00] Javitos that were selling the nostalgia and you know, that sort of taste of Mexico through, you know, drinks that you could find at the Taqueria or the Mexican restaurant or even in grocery stores, but nothing had come in and done anything new still kind of an old idea.

So. We, the evolution of our journey really is that we see Jarritos selling, you know, hundreds of millions of units of Jarritos. And we could potentially have. A really interesting opportunity to introduce tapache as a Mexican soda. 

Jordan Buckner: I'm curious with that as well, in terms of your go to market strategy, and then you mentioned you had the great meeting with Whole Foods to launch in their regions.

Jaritos is like very common in like every Mexican restaurant essentially, like in their, or in their drink set. Did you think about going towards like food service and restaurants, or did you stick with grocery stores at first? Yeah. And how has that changed? 

Alex Matthews: Yeah, it's a real I think the first two years of our journey were spent mostly [00:10:00] trying to win in like natural grocery stores to give ourselves a footing.

We saw great early success and still do with Whole Foods. They're one of our best partners. We're in every location nationwide. But the food service opportunity is so huge. There's over 75, 000 restaurants in the United States that serve Mexican food. And of those 75, 000 55, 000 of them are independently owned and operated.

So, right there, , you have this absolute monster of an opportunity for Tepache to become and there's absolutely no reason why Tepache, which is known to most Latinos couldn't become , this next, you know, healthy Mexican soda. , the rest of the restaurants or chain restaurants like El Pollo Loco or, you know, Taco Bell or, you know Chipotle and Qdoba and things like that.

So. Inspired by Mexican food and again, another big, big opportunity. [00:11:00] But yeah, so I, I think like the evolution of the idea has definitely gotten bigger. Because initially we thought we would maybe be in a kombucha alternative. And actually what we found now three years in is that the bigger opportunity is to become a Mexican soda.

Jordan Buckner: And I'm curious along with that, because a lot of founders start off with that journey where they think their product is one thing. I went through the same thing. I had a line of energy bars, essentially, and thought we were one thing and realize our customers thought we were something else. As you kind of went through that evolution, did you start hearing from people that they were asking for?

They're talking about it that way? Yeah. I'm kind of curious, like how that evolution happened that you started getting feedback from demos or from talking to customers, where that came from? 

Alex Matthews: Yeah. I mean, the end of last year I think we realized that a few things were happening. One, that Tepache is a new word to Americans. Tepachee, you know, even with the halo of the [00:12:00] history and , the idea of the product rooted in, in gut health , and also the fact that it has this like I think quite cool positioning. It's still that the idea of topache still isn't quite enough to comprehend if you're just an average American, say living in Oklahoma.

So what we realized is that Mexican soda. Has a bigger net because they probably have had a Jarritos or a Fanta or a Mexican Coke, and , they identify that , with either Mexican food or with an experience, like being in a market or, you know, 

Jordan Buckner: I know, like Mexican Coke, right, has this halo of having a richer flavor that you can't get from U. S. Coke, so there's kind of this, like, rich flavor connotation that happens. Sometimes it's from sugar, like, but, like, real sugar but I think there's this, like, yeah, better flavor connotation to it. 

Alex Matthews: Right, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think , the halo that , Mexican Coke have achieved by just changing the sugar is pretty remarkable.

But yeah, [00:13:00] so I think to answer your question, , I think that the idea is much bigger when you position Tepache as a Mexican soda. I think it's more easy to understand and it becomes less about trying to maybe understand or say the word Tepache and more about the Tepache, Oh, it's a Mexican soda. And , that unlock for us mentally , was a big light bulb moment.

And it's, you'll see it on marketing starting this month, actually, that the positioning is around us as a soda. 

Jordan Buckner: I'm kind of curious, the soda and kind of beverage business is extremely hot right now, but also very competitive. I'm curious kind of how do you found the market to be any lessons learned about building a beverage brand in today's market?

Alex Matthews: Yeah, I mean, I think and this is very common, but I think it's changing, but I think a lot of folks that I know , and, you know, to a degree, even myself at the juice plant at the beginning back , in 2011. , you need to identify the customer who are you trying to sell to who is this product [00:14:00] for?

Right. And I think if you don't understand that part fully , and really get comfortable and get to grips with it, like. That you can often get off to a good start but it, things can go wrong quite quickly. Getting approvals for grocery shelves, if you've got a good enough idea, the good enough story and the actual product is in the zone in terms of, You know, the flavor profile, you can get opportunities.

And so I think that that part of it is like misunderstood in a lot of ways. You know, you think once you're on shelf for every Whole Foods that you're sort of on your way. And I think what the realization for me is that you've really got to understand the opportunity, the wider opportunity outside of the liberal states.

And that's where you need to really spend a lot of your time thinking about is, who is this customer? Why should they care? Transcribed you know, , why we did miss us if we weren't on shelf. But to your point I think someone once said to me, like, you can sort of head out for a destination, have a destination in mind.

And there's a road you're going to take. , and oftentimes in business, you [00:15:00] set off on that journey and you end up on a different road and the destination becomes different. And when you finally get there, you look over your shoulder, you realized that. You know what, if you did sort of never set off in the first place, right, with that original idea, you may never have ended up where you ended up.

So I think that that's always a factor, right? So, you know, whether it's thinking you're going to be a kombucha alternative and actually What you really are is a Mexican soda. 

Jordan Buckner: It sounds like you learned this as well, which I went through too, of as a founder, right? We have this idea of who, when we talk about like target customers, I feel like a lot of founders come at it from a philosophical way, a little bit like this is who I want to like my product and who I think I'm designing it for.

But what's also really important is. The customers, once it's in the market, like who are the people who are actually buying it? Right. And like why they're buying it and pulling those into the full. Because a lot, as you just mentioned, the diverting paths, a lot of times who you think might buy it will also [00:16:00] be very different from who's actually buying it and you could either resist it or you can embrace it if that's a good enough opportunity or a big enough opportunity.

Mm 

Alex Matthews: hmm. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think , the customer groups that are buying or you know, are clearly known to us now after three and a half years. But what's the most exciting thing is that there's this big consumer group Latinos that will occupy 25 percent of the population by 2028.

And that group of people are going to the same bars that we're going to they're picking up the same products that we're picking up. They are going to the same gigs we're going to, like they are part , of this same, same sort of idea. So that buying power is unbelievable.

And I think that those are going to be the group actually that will end up taking like brands like to Tepache and other brands that have I think like a focus on the Mexican halo that is truly like happening , that, you know, brands like Delacalle and, you know, [00:17:00] Fiete, Lupita's and Somos, Marcienda, and, and some of these other brands are like doing amazing things will, are going to reap the benefits, you know, because that group wants good products and, but they also want it to feel like a part of home.

And I think that nostalgia is everything. I think 

Jordan Buckner: I love that. Alex, I'm so happy to have had you on and to learn from your story and journey. And really excited to see where De La Calle goes next. I'm excited to pick up some from Whole Foods again as well. Thanks so much for being on the show.

Alex Matthews: I appreciate it, Jordan.