Jordan Buckner (00:00)
Today I'm talking with Mallory Patton, who is the co-founder of St. Spritz, which is a fast growing, ready to drink, Epertivo brand inspired by European summers and built for modern sipping. In just over a year, they've gone from idea to growing in distribution, all while keeping things delicious, clean, and beautifully branded. Mallory, welcome to the show today.

Mallory (00:19)
Thanks for having me.

Jordan Buckner (00:20)
So tell me more about St. Spritz and how you were inspired to come up with the company.

Mallory (00:27)
Honestly, Spritz really kind of grew out of a need for something we wanted. Like you had said, you know, St. Spritz is modeled after those iconic Italian Spritzes that you saw everywhere on Netflix with the white lotus and all over Instagram, all these brands traveling to Italy and taking influencers. It just felt like you couldn't look at social media without seeing those bright orange Spritzes. And we fell in love with them too. And we came back from our trip to Italy and, you know, we were mixing up the Spritzes and they tasted different ever.

time or if I made one, my husband doesn't really drink a ton so like I would then be having all this leftover Prosecco that I would throw out and we just felt like there was an inconsistency in taste and then

just kind of honestly, all of the things that we were drinking were available in RTDs. And with that category just taking off, we, myself and my other co-founder, Jojo, looked at each other and we were like, why isn't there a great Aperol Spritz in a can? So we just went to the grocery store and we bought anything that was out there and we didn't find anything that matched that amazing taste that we fell in love with. So we started the journey to create it ourselves. And, you know, I think the biggest leading foot for us is when we looked behind

what was in the spritzes and we saw that, you they get that bright red orange color because they've got red dye, yellow dye, and added sugar and we just knew like, I don't give my kids products with red dye 40, you know, I shouldn't be consuming this. So that kind of really led our journey to create a better for you, ready for you spritz in a can.

Jordan Buckner (01:55)
That's so much fun. know the kind of RTD alcoholic industry has really grown. The category has really grown and taken off over the last couple of years and which is really cool to see. I mean, from really small players to large companies who are getting in. What has it been like to build a company and a brand within this space? Do you feel like it's gotten pretty crowded? Do you feel like there's still a lot of room to stand out and have your own identity?

Mallory (02:22)
So the RTD category has been booming, like you said, and it's definitely really crowded, but we felt like in the spritz category, there was white space. And I always think in any category, whether it's swimsuits or bottled water, there's always room for innovation. So, you know, I think, yeah, there's always room.

Jordan Buckner (02:40)
What were some of your biggest hurdles in launching this brand? Did you have a background in beverage beforehand?

Mallory (02:46)
So I didn't have any background in beverage. My background is more in B2B sales. My co-founder Jojo, she has experience in social media and marketing, and our other co-founder has those CFO skills. But none of us had beverage experience. And honestly, I think that might be.

Obviously, there's been a learning curve because it's a really complicated industry with a lot of laws. But I think almost that's why we've had success, because we're thinking about things differently. I think if I had ever worked in beverage before, I probably would have been like, this is going to be way too hard. I think that kind of naivety in the space is what led us to kind of just charge through and just go after it.

Jordan Buckner (03:26)
So you launched the brand just a couple of years ago and already distributed in tons of retailers around the country. Can you tell me some of the retailers you're working with?

Mallory (03:37)
Yeah, so we launched originally Direct-to-Consumer and, know, St. Spritz is 5 % alcohol from wine, so that's why we able to do that. It was a great start for that because we were able to...

Jordan Buckner (03:46)
And with that, are you able

to ship and not have to go through the alcohol distribution?

Mallory (03:50)
We can ship directly from our website, but in traditional retail, which is where we knew our brand would survive and thrive, you have to move through distribution. But the direct consumer element allowed us to launch, utilize JoJo's following on social media, and kind of see where our heat map was, like where we were doing best in the country, and kind of have an educated map to, okay, this is where we've got to start. And so that's where we started in Texas, and that was only January of last year when we dove into real...

Distribution and a lot of that is this is very difficult to get distribution So, you know, we we launched UTC and then we built up those relationships and kind of decided okay We're gonna go after Texas because that's where we're from or we're removed from late You know, Texas is where our home is but

you know, that was our backyard and we decided that would be a great place to start. We ended up getting into Total Wine and a local to Texas grocery called HEB, which if you're from Texas, you know what it is, but if you're not, maybe you don't. In the CPC space. Yeah, so last January we launched Texas with just HEB and Total Wine and it went great.

Jordan Buckner (04:47)
They're pretty well known, I think, in the CPG space, but yeah, maybe not as from customers.

Mallory (04:57)
And then last summer was when we got our test within Target. And that was just four or five stores. And that test within Target went super well. And they approached us at the end of the summer and said, hey, this product's doing really well in Target. It really fits well with the Target consumer. We want to expand this for the whole state of Texas, which our team was like, here we go. That's awesome. That's our dream retailer. And then they asked us to expand nationally.

after that conversation and that was an O &D of last fall for this spring. So like that for us was like a huge, huge hurdle. We'll be like, okay, now we're going to O &D, which is a very difficult time to get in front of the distributors and we've got to round them all up ahead of spring for next year. So.

Jordan Buckner (05:41)
That sounds like a wild adventure. How did you,

like how are you doing that and getting everything ready?

Mallory (05:46)
So in Texas,

we're with the Beer Network, which we did strategically. Obviously, we're a small company. It's not like we're Constellation or Diageo, this big brand that launches something and immediately it's everywhere. We knew we would have to be more focused approached. So we started with the Beer Network in Texas on the Molson Court of Core side of things. And we're smaller, so that was great. And they're obviously very familiar with moving cans. But obviously, as part of that target,

national launch, we would have had to get together 260 wholesalers and it just was impossible. So we knew we had to switch and honestly, I would say like Target's a lot of the reason we were able to get that done so quickly because we were coming to the distributors with already a really big opening order for Target. So that was what we built our distribution footprint around. So now as far as retailers,

We still have those great retailers we had in Texas, which was Total Wine, HEB, Tom Thumb, Albertsons, but now we're national at Target. And alongside that footprint, Total Wine expanded those states that we got with Target. And then in between that time, Walmart also reached out for about 500 locations, which are focused mostly in coastal regions.

Jordan Buckner (06:57)
so a lot of expansion

really fast.

Mallory (06:59)
a

lot of really fast expansion. then also we're in the Caribbean with Puerto Rico. We have distribution and production with Coca-Cola's co-packer here, CC1. So we've got Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and then we've got whole US. it's been a very fast growth since, I guess, a real calendar year.

Jordan Buckner (07:19)
So being a new company, I know you said that Jojo has a social media presence following there. How were you able to really build the brand and build the awareness to drive traffic into the retailers that you were expanding into, right? Because of course there's gonna be some people who find you on the shelf, but a lot of times people will come in, if you're new they won't even know the look for you.

Mallory (07:39)
Yeah, that's you know, honestly, that's the biggest struggle is not getting on the shelf which I think the social media awareness and all that made it easier for us to get a spot on the shelf with big retailers because we had the awareness through Jojo, but as far as pulling off the shelf, you know

We do use social media to drive to our store locator. This is where we're at. But really, we invest a lot of time, energy, and resources into just showing up on the shelf. Even if someone has not seen us on social media, we want to catch their eye right to the shelf. And I think our packaging does that super well. It's the bold stripe. We want people to find it. We incentivize displays. We do great POS. So really, it's a combination of all things. But I think just you can't hang.

your saddle on social media because there's so many people that you cannot reach with that. You've got to meet the consumer where they're at in retail. And honestly, that's like I said, displays, pricing, point of sale materials is really how to grab a customer.

Jordan Buckner (08:39)
It is cute. What I'm kind of curious whether the point of sale materials are you testing out that have initial kind of success? Is it those displays to kind of catch people's attention? And it's always curious because I think a lot of founders that I talked to are saying like, I'm on shelf, but our product is struggling to move off. And so they're trying to look into like where to invest, what types of POS and displays to use and really trying to

and get some ideas on what might work.

Mallory (09:08)
Yeah,

it's tough because honestly, we have a really great point of sale material. It looks like an Italian fruit car. It's just like a case stacker. And it's amazing because not only do you get this brand presence that looks like on vibe with our brand that's coastal Italian, but also you get an extra spot in the store. So you might be on the shelf, but also you're going to get a special corner of the store with this beautiful sale point of sale material. But it is difficult.

like to select what POS you want, because then there's all these rules for, you'll see like for other beverage founders, it's like, well, this store has a clean store mandate and you can't have POS, so you could spend thousands and thousands of dollars creating something that won't even work in the retailers you have. So you're just working really collaboratively with your distributors and retail and asking them like, what is the POS that you want? You know, if we don't do a ton of stuff on premise right now, but we knew like buckets would be great because that helps a really busy brunch that they're like you said,

of mixing up Aperol spritzes and Hugo spritzes when they're like, if I could just have a bucket, if I can drop off at a table with these ready to drink spritzes, that's a huge problem solve for me. So working collaboratively, before you have it made, have it conceptualized and show it to your distributors and make sure it's something that they can actually put into place. Because early on we did make those mistakes where we had really expensive umbrellas made and then realized that a lot of stores didn't want to have a giant umbrella inside their store.

Jordan Buckner (10:31)
Yeah, no, that's so key because a lot of times those partners, one, they'll know like what they allow and what they don't. But then two, they should know what's actually like what products moves from the type of POS and the type of merchandising. And so it's so important to collaborate with them because right, like the more they sell, the more happier that they are. So they're incentivized to sell your product as well. So they want to tell you the things that move all of that.

Mallory (10:53)
Yeah.

And it really does

attract your customer. If you have something near checkout that just grabs someone's eye, they might not even know what it was before, but as soon as they see that display, it catches them. So that's a big place of interruption is right where you're at.

Jordan Buckner (11:10)
I'm curious, as you're thinking about seasonality, we're recording this kind of in spring, kind of going across the US, how is your brand kind of thinking about the effects of seasonality in people drinking Aperol spritzes or spritzes?

Mallory (11:24)
So the cool thing about Aperol spritz, and I think a lot of times things start a certain way in Europe and then they're adapted here. The cool thing about spritzes is like you see them drink them, people drinking them on the slopes. So the spritz really trans ends season, which especially with our Amalfi flavor, which is based on that Aperol spritz flavor. I think it's a little bit less like summer seasonal, but we do have other flavors like the Sicily, which is our basil limonata spritz. That's obviously going to be heavier summer.

you

But I think RTD is in general lean heavy towards spring summer. But I think having the Amalfi that goes through the seasons and also we've found other creative ways with our drinks to bring them across the seasons. not only marketing towards the Opry ski occasion, but we've also done things like last year when we were sold just CTC, we did a collaboration with a bourbon company called Off Hours and we did like a bourbon spritz. And that was great because that company was trying to grab more female consumers.

And we were also trying to grab more male consumers and we were able to combine them in a lighter spritzier version of like Manhattan, kind of old, not Manhattan, but old fashioned spritz. And it was like the Amalfi was the base. Then we added the bourbon, had ginger beer and then a maraschino cherry. And it was so amazing. So ways like that to translate it across the seasons is amazing. Yeah, very good.

Jordan Buckner (12:45)
That sounds delicious, I'll have to try that.

As you're building the brand, how are you thinking about managing the digital marketing elements versus in-person events, demos, and tastings?

Mallory (12:57)
So it's kind of a combination of both. I think showing up in person is always, to me, is always going to be like a direct.

return like we see across our sampling program. We just get to engage so closely with the consumer. So we try to do as much as that as possible. I think right now we're doing about 500 samplings per month. So a pretty heavy sampling program. But also we do quite a bit of digital. Obviously we were digital first. So we are direct to consumer. So Google, Meta, all the ad buy and advertisements. We do a huge bit of influencer marketing. So it's really I hate to say it, but it's really

a combination of both. Wherever you can show up in person, that's where you're going to have your strongest sales and your strongest hold on the market.

Jordan Buckner (13:41)
That's really exciting. Have you thought about doing any type of sponsorship events or in on-premise events to kind of get the product into more people at festivals or summer concerts or things like that?

Mallory (13:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, we do a ton of that. we hired, actually she's my sister, which is really fun because obviously my co-founders are my brother and sister-in-law, but we brought on to our team Jordan who's...

Absolutely incredible. She was head of brand partnership for goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's company and that was kind of her specialty was doing brand partnerships with Gwyneth and goop together. So she stepped in and she has done an amazing job at working with our team and Jojo's handle and how we kind of like collaborate and get uplift from her three million followers plus our 35,000 on Instagram.

And that shows up in a lot of ways in partnerships with events. Like we did SI Swim Week. We did Coachella. All that stuff we do as much as possible just collaborating with other brands. We do a lot of like kind of sip and shop events across the US in retail and jewelry stores. It's been really successful for us.

Jordan Buckner (14:46)
That's fun. That's constantly working with

your sister. What's it been like building a business with family?

Mallory (14:51)
It's so funny because I feel like every time someone asks me this question, like they're expecting it to be like sour or like spicy. Like how is that working with your family? But really it's so amazing for us because we know each other's personalities so well. And there's not that kind of like corporate wall between us where it's like, if I'm doing something and it's bothering Jojo, like she'll just say it to me directly or vice versa. know, there's.

We're family, so there's no awkwardness in confrontation. And also we just know what's going on in each other's lives. So if my other co-founder's baby is sick, I know, okay, I'm not gonna hammer him about this topic right now, because I know that he's got a sick baby at home. It's just, we're so dialed in on every piece of the business.

And also I think there's also just this like family vibe where, my sister is doing all of our brand stuff, but she's my sister. So she'll be like, you seem buried in this one thing. Let me help you. And it's been so amazing. You know, I really can't think of a better setup. And we're right next door. Like all my co-founders, my sister and brother-in-law, I can see my brother-in-law's house and Jojo's house is two minutes away. we're all mixed together.

Jordan Buckner (15:56)
my goodness, that's amazing. It's so much fun.

Well, I mean, especially after, you know, I bet coming from other careers and things and like ways of doing things, it's nice to have a different way of working. And it feels like really refreshing. I think what I found is a lot of times family dynamics when they are challenging usually happen like very early in people's like careers or lives. Like everyone's trying to figure themselves out and like find things. And so when you're at the point of like, all right, let's like, we know what

Mallory (16:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (16:23)
Each person, like we know what ourselves do well and what each person does well, it's so much easier.

Mallory (16:25)
Yeah.

We very much have our own lanes, right? So like I said, I focus heavily on the B2B sales and I'm pitching retail and working with our distributors and Jojo's heavy on the brand and all the stuff with influencers and the brand development and all the activations you see, she works with my sister on. And then Ben, our other co-founder, he's a CFO CEO and he's started and sold several different companies alongside my husband and they just, I will never be able to do a P &L.

in the way that Banggood could do. We each have our lanes and I think it keeps it pretty seamless.

Jordan Buckner (17:00)
So Mallory, I'm curious, a lot of founders are really pushing retail expansion right now. What have you found in terms of opportunities out there that like buyers are really interested in, like what are they interested in? And then two, what are any challenges that you see in the market right now?

Mallory (17:18)
So I think that...

So we dealt with this when we launched into Texas only, we felt like we were only speaking to Texas and there was so much missed opportunity for our brand and in particular, cause we did so much on social media, it felt like it was a tree falling in the forest. So for us, we wanted as much placement as we could, but also to be strategic in that placement. There's definitely some stores where our product wouldn't do well. They, or, you know, zip codes where it wouldn't do as well. know, typically on the spritzes, you see that more metropolitan areas.

So think for us, it was like we wanted to get a relationship with a national retailer and Target was perfect for that because that's our consumer. But we're hyper focused on supporting that with other retail that makes sense, not stuff that's going to be as much of a fight to educate our consumer on the product. And I do think after COVID, there was tons of RTDs. I think

probably more than we've ever seen. And I think that a lot of that has contracted a little bit. So maybe there's some shelf space up for grabs for people who maybe didn't kind of cut out their niche or whatever it is. So I think the opportunity is there. Just kind of proving your concept and staying hyper-focused because you could very easily get pulled in a million different ways. We just kind of hyper-focus. It's like we're going to work crushing it at retail and that's where we're going to focus. We're not going to

to be able to crush on-premise in the way that we can focus and dial and succeed in chain.

Jordan Buckner (18:41)
That totally makes sense. What's the next opportunity you're looking for? Is it continuing just to focus on the retail expansion? Do you have any other new products or new channels that you're looking at?

Mallory (18:51)
So something really big we're working on is a variety pack. Obviously as a small company, like our cost of goods has always been higher, but as we've grown nationally, we're accomplishing some.

you know, some ability to bring like have adjustment with price so we can fit into a variety pack at a price that's not going to scare the consumer. Before it was like in order for us to be in a variety pack, the price was just so prohibitive because we don't get the kind of bulk pricing that your big wine conglomerates get. And we did also make a pretty premium product. I mean, we're 30 % juice, which is an expensive ingredient. And that was just so important to us. And we didn't want to sacrifice on that. um,

Yeah, I think biggest innovation coming is going to be a variety pack. We're always working on innovation in the background that we maybe don't necessarily plan to launch in the next calendar year, but we'll have the ability to launch something that we've been we have had is our flavors just non alcoholic. So that's something that we will probably innovate further. But I feel like for now we really have to own the lane that we're in instead of being so many things to so many people. It's like we are a Spritz brand. We are iconic.

Italian flavors and innovating in our package size is really a great focus area for us.

Jordan Buckner (20:02)
I love that. I focus is always really important to achieving that success. Mallory, thanks so much for being on the show today and sharing the story. I'm going to include links in the show notes to your website so people can learn more and get in touch. Thanks so much for being on.

Mallory (20:05)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.