The Startup CPG Podcast

02:53 Jessi - Welcome to the third annual Shelfie's Award Ceremony and thanks for being here and i'm going to pass it off quickly to Daniel our founder to just say a couple words of welcome and then Jenna and Patricia are going to tell us a little bit more about the shelf is awards and some upcoming events.

03:10 Daniel - All right. Thank you, Jessi. And thank you, everybody, for tuning in for this and just for supporting all of these amazing brands. This was a super fun year for us. We had just more applications than ever, more products than we know what to do with. I know that Shelfie's judges were just kind of overwhelmed with all of the goodness. And just, you know, we really appreciate all of you guys taking the time to send in the products and just to support. this community and be part of it. And we are here for you. I want to thank our sponsor, Floret. So if you're not familiar with them, they help brands manage deductions. They will help you figure out where your trade spend is going. They will try to get your money back if there is a dispute. So definitely check them out. Their website is tryfloret.com. We really appreciate their support because it actually is these trophies that the winners will get. Probably you can't see it, but I'm holding mine up with my screen here are amazing and we couldn't do it without them. And, you know, just congrats to all the brands who submitted. And we had about 600 or more submissions. We had 80 finalists. We have, you know, over 20 winners. So we are here really trying to recognize as many of you as possible. You all have such incredible brands. And thank you so much to our team. You know, Jessi, Patty, Jenna, Kiki, everybody who has a big part in helping to recognize the ones that will win Shelfies but also you guys probably see we try to feature as many of you as possible in our magazine content and blogs and you know this is the way we basically get to know your products and when we do store visits then we know who to look out for on shelf so Even if you don't win a Shelfie here, I hope you know that like we are really just trying to help as many people as possible. And I was really excited to see. I know our game that was a finalist when I went to the Harvest Festival at Expo East had their finalist badge front and center. And it was beautiful. And I know she's Candace said she got actually a lot of attention because of it. So. Hope you guys make the most of it. And please, you know, keep coming with the feedback on how we can make this better. Our dream is to help support as many of you as possible, as much as possible, and to give you a better chance of succeeding with our Slack channel. Hopefully you're all in it. Resources, you know, award programs. So we will keep also coming up with new cool things to do. So that's it for me. Thank you again to our team and to all of you. And the last thing I want to say is, please, during this broadcast, show some love. Don't be shy at all about just pouring out love in the comments here for all the brands, especially, you know, it's really hard when you don't win something that you want very badly. So please just start dropping tons of comments, supporting all of the finalists. saying what you liked about them, congratulating the winner, going nuts. Let us make this the biggest LinkedIn party that anyone's ever seen. And it really just goes a long way to support everybody. So please bring the enthusiasm. Start it now and let's keep it going through the whole thing. Thanks, everybody.

05:58 Jessi - Awesome. Thanks, Daniel. All right, Patti and Jenna, do you want to take us through what's next?

06:05 Patricia - Hi, everyone. We are so excited to be here. But just before we start the announcements, I want to share that we are doing this event live because our community is spread through all around the U.S. and also other countries. So we appreciate that you are here joining us today. But we do have two events in person that are going to happen next week on October 5th, one in New York, one in LA, to celebrate all the shelves applicants, not only the winners and the finalists, but all the brands that are changing the CPG industry. So either if you are in LA or New York, or you want to join us at the event, we are going to be so happy to have you there. Kiki is going to drop the links here in the chat, so make sure to RSVP so we can all celebrate it.

06:52 Jenna - Amazing. So yeah, I'm super excited. I'm in New York. So we will be attending the New York event. And we are so excited to be able to celebrate in person. But also, as this slide indicates, we really want to make sure that we're celebrating in person too. All right, sorry. in the live too. So definitely make sure that you're chatting it up in the comments as we've been saying. Also celebrate with us on social. If you want to take a picture while this goes down and post on our story, that'd be awesome. Cheer on some of your favorite finalist brands and winners. And with that, I just want to introduce what the selfies even are. So we are really thrilled to celebrate some of the best in class emerging CPG brands. And this is our third year doing so. Our mission at Startup CPG has always been to elevate emerging consumer brands. And since our inception, we've been really aware of all the really unique challenges and opportunities that emerging brands face. And among those challenges is actually the cost and labor barrier for nominating products for big name awards. So we found that applying to just like a big name award usually requires a ton of time and hundreds of dollars. And we just didn't want that barrier for the small brands that we are rooting for, because we know that a best in class award can be a catalyst to turn an emerging product into a moonshot. So today we are celebrating the small guys, as we like to say, and recognizing the potential moonshots in our own community. Even if you did not win a Shelfie and you're a finalist, you should know that being a finalist was a huge, huge feat, as we have emphasized a ton already. We received so many products. So that is the thesis of the Shelfies Awards, and we're so happy that you are here. And we're going to get into the judging criteria a little bit more. So Patty, I'm going to pass it back to you.

08:37 Patricia - Yeah, of course. So to get started, we are going to share, as Jenna said, a little bit about what we were looking for. So for the food and beverage categories, the taste was the first and the main criteria. And of course, everyone tastes food is a little different. So we brought a diverse set of tasters, some with different different age, dietary restrictions and preference. And then for our pet category, we actually even expanded to new species.

09:08 Jenna - And while we did have taste as one of the criteria, we also this year for the first time have some categories that do not require taste buds. So for our body care, skin care, and hygiene categories, we were really interested in efficacy. So we actually started testing these categories in March so that we had enough time to really like integrate these products into our daily routines. And again, we brought on a lot of diverse testers, those with skin, different kinds of needs in the hygiene and body care sector, and we made sure that each of these needs was recognized, so we gave each product a fair shot.

09:47 Patricia - And then of course, one of the startups, CPG's core value is to uplift brands that can really make a difference. And that can mean so many things like sustainable and thoughtful sourcing, better for you ingredients, female or minority leaders, or active members in our community that really demonstrate their passion for the CPG industry and are willing to helping others.

10:10 Jenna - Yeah, and our last judging criteria is branding and messaging. So while we do love some cool aesthetics, this also goes beyond aesthetics because we love a good story. And consistent, authentic storytelling is really key to building an amazing brand in these days. So we are also going to end with the best branding category to celebrate one brand that did this especially well, but we also consider this across the board. That concludes our judging criteria. If you have any questions on that, feel free to add them to the comments as well. But I'm going to pass it back to Jessi to walk us through how this will all go down.

10:47 Jessi - Yeah, so we have a lot of finalists. So we're going to briefly announce the finalists for every category, and then we're going to share the winner. So use the comments to hype up the brands, cheer them on. And if you're a finalist or a winner, we would love if you put in the comments like a link to your website so that everybody can go check it out. And then to keep things moving, we won't be able to talk about every finalist, but there will be a special edition of the, about the Shelfies of the Startup CPG Spotlight Magazine coming out that'll have more about each finalist. It's going to be awesome. It looks so cool. So we're super excited about that. So to keep things moving, we're just going to keep it brief. brief. So let's do it. Let's get into the ceremony. And for the first time ever, we're going to have our first category of hygiene.

11:35 Patricia - Yeah, so I'm going to be announcing the hygiene category. So our finalists are Couché, the Gentle 2-in-1 Foaming Feminine Wash, the Viv Cup, and Walmart Play, the Coconut Love Oil. And the finalist is… That suspense. The finalist is Viv. Congratulations. We love Viv's Viv Cup as an incredible sustainable menstrual product made with medical-grade silicon and a super beginner-friendly design. I have to say that I personally met Viv in 2021 at Expo East. I think they were not even part of the community yet, but I met them at a networking event and they talk about their product. And after the show, I bought their product and I was impressed by it. And I never use any other like feminine products. So I'm really happy that this year they apply and they made it.

12:32 Jessi - Amazing. And our next category is body care.

12:35 Jenna - Super excited to be going through body care again. This is the first year that we had body care included. Our finalists are Pedestrian Project’s Walker's Cream, Shikohin’s Enchanting Dry Body Oil, and Butter’d Bodycare's All Fluff Body Cream. And the winner is…

12:58 Patricia - Should make a little music.

13:00 Jenna - Pedestrian Project! Woo! So Pedestrian Project Walker’s Cream made us love foot cream and that is a feat, no pun intended, in itself because I I don't think any of the judges had a foot cream that they really loved before this, but this absolutely melts into the skin for the softest feet, and it's made with incredibly clean ingredients. It's 100% vegan, cruelty-free. There are no silicones, fragrances, or anything funky, and they're just doing something really awesome at Pedestrian Project by paying attention to our feet. So I'm really excited about this body care product, and congratulations to Pedestrian Project.

13:41 Jessi - Yeah. Amazing. I can't wait to try it. All right. Our next category is skin care. Another first time category.

13:49 Patricia - Yes. So we have three finalists for this category. We have Journ with the Kauai Color Corrector, Daybird with Tinted Skin Care and Radixir with Confidence Serum. So the winner of skin care category this year is… Journ! So I also love this product so much because not only act as a color correcting makeup, but it also helps to minimize the appearance of dark circles, spots, acne scars, and hyperpigmentation over time. It's vegan, it's paraben, fragrance, and sulfate-free. And I think that Journ is really changing the game of makeup.

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15:54 Jenna - Amazing. So the finalists for the supplement category are Funkin Wellness' Cycle Bites, Jaded CBD's Sleep Tight Gummies, Bonny’s Berry Beauty Prebiotic Fiber Supplement, and Tend Prenatal's Lemon Berry Daily Prenatal Vitamin Bar. And the winner is… It's not even here that I'm like… Funk It Wellness! Funk It Wellness makes Cycle Bites, which are real food-based multivitamins for hormone support. We really love this idea of having a real food supplement that actually tastes amazing and includes 20 plus natural ingredients in this really yummy cacao and ginger treats. They taste delicious and they're clinically backed to actually help balance your hormones. Now I found myself eating one of these every day, like it was so easy to incorporate in my daily routine. And also we learned a lot from using these about how vitamins are more easily absorbed by the body through real food. So we're very excited by this brand. Congratulations to Funk It Wellness. Yay! Awesome.

17:11 Jessi - All right, now we're going to move into beverages with benefits, which I'm so excited for. I'm a multiple beverage on the desk at a time person, so I'm very excited.

17:20 Patricia - Yes, I also love the name. I have to say that. When we came up with the name, we were like, oh yeah, that's cute. Bevs with Benefits, love it. For the finalists, for the Bev With Benefits, we have the Cultivate, the Mango Wellness Soda, All Phenom's Defense Plan, Immorel Feed Ur Focus, which by the way, I love this name, Recoup Wellness Lemon Lime Ginger. And the winner is… All Phenoms! All Phenoms blended organic blueberry juice, a hint of organic mint and coconut water for a delicious, refreshing taste. They also have prebiotics, vitamin C, zinc and elderberry, as well as a blend of adaptogenics. It's really like a super boost and it's packed with a lot of benefits and also tastes amazing. So you can't not love this drink. Congratulations.

18:23 Jessi - All right, our next category is non-alcoholic.

18:27 Jenna - Yeah, so while you could argue that some bevs with benefits also fall into the non-alcoholic category, we realized we needed both categories because we had so many submissions and certain ones were really more used for a replacement for alcohol, while others had kind of standalone benefits. So this is our non-alcoholic beverage category. The finalists are Hiyo's Blackberry Lemon, Hooch Booch's Rose Corpse Reviver, and Exeer's Mint Soother. And the winner is… Exeer! I hope I'm saying that right. I realized I don't know if I am. But Exeer is a perfectly carbonated, lightly carbonated, non-alcohol alternative made with really simple ingredients like mint water and maple syrup. Um, this is a sparkling botanical beverage, which pays tribute to age old traditions of drinking botanical beverages. Another thing I learned from there, awesome storytelling. Um, and it also provides the best alternative to a mojito that we have ever had. We actually had a lot of people try this because they sampled at an event that we had and everyone loved this product so much and the judges couldn't agree more. So this was a really fun one. Congratulations.

19:46 Jessi - Yeah, congratulations. That's amazing. I can't wait to try it. All right. Our next category is ready to drink tea, which I love that we got enough submissions to have a ready to drink tea category all on its own.

19:57 Patricia - Yeah, it's amazing. And then just before jumping into this category, I saw that some people are asking in the chat where they can find all these brands. In our latest magazine, we have a finalist page with all the brands and the hyperlink I can share in the Slack later. And we'll also add the finalist magazine in an email too so you guys can all check these brands after. Okay, so back to our category, ready to drink tea. So we had four finalists. We had the BAD Tea Co with the chai, Twrl Milk Tea with the Ube Milk Tea, Kinship Milk Tea with the Earl Grey Milk Tea. It's a lot of milk. And the Mate Party with the Sparkling Yerba Mate. And the winner is… We have to get a music for next year. Yay! Kinship Milk Tea Earl Grey. So this handcrafted small batch milk tea is silk smooth yet 100% vegan and nut-free. It's made with the simplest ingredients like high quality brew tea, oat milk, and tiny touch of raw canned sugar. This is the milk tea we have been waiting for and honestly we just couldn't get enough how cute this bottle is.

21:23 Jessi - Amazing. That's awesome. Continuing with our beverages, now we're going to move into alcoholic beverages.

21:30 Jenna - Yes. So we also had a really great amount of submissions of alcoholic beverages. There were so many fun ones to try. And the finalists in this category are Whist Lychee, Krushwell's Passionfruit Hibiscus, Tequio’s Sparkling Blanco, and Crooked Owl's Jalapeno Hard Tapache. And the winner is… We have to keep going! Whist! Whist is something we have honestly like never really seen before. It's a non-carbonated ready-to-drink that honestly just knocked our socks off and everyone who tried it loved it. So it's actually made with still water. And the second ingredient is orange wine, which is really interesting because it tastes more like a fun cocktail than a canned wine, but it's non-sparkling, made of still water orange wine and real fruit juice. Each can's only 80 calories for those who care about that. But more importantly, it's just the perfect summery sip. The lychee flavor transports you to another place. It is delicious. And we love the innovation in this category and also can't get enough of this can. It is also very beautiful.

22:44 Patricia - Yes, I'm here for the aesthetics.

22:47 Jessi - Yes, beautiful. Well, congratulations. All right, now moving into snacks. I'm very excited. We have multiple snacks category and I see that live we have joining us the snack queen herself and friend of StartupCPG, Monica Watrus is in the audience. So now it's snack time. Take your notes for all you that need your afternoon snack. This is your moment for your new favorite snacks.

23:10 Patricia - Love that. Okay, so going to the savory snacks, we had four finalists as well. And the finalists are Marimix with the Hatch Chili Lime, 470 Baking Co. Original Sourdough Crispies, Geem with Just Salty, and Absurd Snacks with Rockin’ Rosemary Sea Salt. And the winner is… Absurd Snacks! Congratulations! Absurd Snacks actually makes nut-free trail mix, disrupting everything you thought you knew about trail mix. This is the crunchiest, most satisfying snack to bring on the go for literally anyone to enjoy. It's made with crunchy roasted beans, seeds, dry fruit, hemp hearts and oats for your protein fix mix on the go. We got a bag for the Shelfies, and I took to me with my trip for Brazil. And Kevin texted me, my husband, he was like, where is that purple bag that I want to eat from tonight? And I'm like, well, I took it for my plane trip, and he got so mad at me, so.

24:22 Jenna - We fight over our finalists is what I'm hearing. Yes. Yep. Yep.

24:27 Jessi - Awesome. And then now on to sweet snacks.

24:31 Jenna - Yes, I'm excited to introduce the four finalists in sweet snacks. The first one is Brooskis Cookies Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Trupo Treats Chocolate and Peanut Butter Crisp Wafer Bar, Better Sour’s Pomegranate Tangy Gummies, and Carolyn Crisp's Cinna Crisps. And the winner is… Better Sour! Woo! Better Sour's globally inspired gummies contain only three grams of sugar and 60 calories in the entire bag, but you would really just never, ever know that these are healthy in any way. They are plant-based, so again, anyone can really enjoy them, and they're perfectly sour for sour lovers and sweet lovers alike. But most importantly, they're really introducing fun, new global flavors to the candy aisle that we have never seen before. So you can now welcome pomegranate and guava to the candy aisle. And we are so excited that they're bringing some diversity to an otherwise very stale space. So very proud of Better Sour.

25:41 Jessi - Congratulations. Amazing. And speaking of fighting over, you know, brands. This is a brand that because we're we we love gummy candy in our household, my husband and I and even people that come into our house have been fighting over our better sour Amazon order. And I think the whole order disappeared in like two days because we've been fighting over them. So there's so good. I'm congratulations. Alright, our next category continuing on our sweet trend is dessert and baking mixes.

26:11 Patricia - Okay, so we also had four finalists. So the finalists are the Sweet Kiwi with the Cookies and Cream Whipped Greek Yogurt, Kula with the Strawberry and Cake Sandwich, Bake Me Healthy with the Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and the Goddess Mousse with the Vegan Raspberry Chocolate Mousse. And the winner is… Goddess Mousse, yay! Okay, I have to say that I was very surprised with this product. I will tell you in a second why, but this is a plant-based alternative to normal chocolate mousse. And this is what I'm surprised of. It's made with the most surprising ingredient. So the first ingredient of this product is tofu. And I mean, it just literally tastes and the texture is like a normal mousse. And it's rich in indogen, perfectly whipped ready-to-eat mousse that it feels like a true luxury when you're eating. It's really good. I finished all the jars, I think in like three days. Not good, not so good, but it tastes really good.

27:26 Jenna - It's so good. And I think the important thing to point out here is we do have a plant-based category, but this one fits with the other desserts because you would just never know that it's plant-based and it stands on its own with the other desserts. So we were really excited about this one.

27:41 Jessi - Amazing. Congratulations. All right, our next category is prepared meals.

27:46 Jenna - All right, so we have three finalists for prepared meals. First one is House of Kajaana’s Cauliflower Tikka Masala. Then we have NoBull’s Original Veggie Burger and 18 Chestnuts Butternut Squash Pear Soup. And the winner is… It's a tie! We could not choose between these two brands. We were debating it for so long that we were like, I guess it just needs to be both of them. They are both amazing prepared meals for totally different reasons. So NoBull’s True Veggie Burger is packed with 10 grams of protein and we love that we can see the real veggies in every bite. It's flavorful and made only with organic lentils, grains, and roasted veggies and no additives. So this is one of the healthiest, best, most delicious veggie burgers that we had tried and we were just really excited to make it a winner. And then the other winner is House of Kajaana. Anyone who has met me in the past, like, month has heard about House of Kajaana because I love it so much. House of Kajaana makes the most delicious frozen Indian meals that we have ever tasted. These plant-based meals have a unique rice component paired with the most flavor-packed vegetable in each of their varieties. For a high-fiber and protein-packed meal that's ready to eat in minutes, Plus, we love that it is made in a fully recyclable paper tray instead of what is usually a plastic tray for frozen meals. So it's really an elevated eating experience all around. And you can actually read more about them in The Glass Magazine, too, because they had a full feature in that magazine. Congratulations to our two winners. What an awesome time.

29:34 Patricia - Yeah. Literally Jen and I had about like five calls and we were like, which one should we pick? And none of the calls we could pick one. It is what it is. It has to be the two of them.

29:48 Jessi - I love it. I'm so excited to try both. That's amazing. All right. Our next category is plant based.

29:55 Patricia - Okay, so we have four finalists for this one too. We have the Seeductive Foods with the Marinated Feta, Rebel Cheese with their Truffle Brie, Sobo Foods with the “Pork” and Chive Dumplings, and the Ghost Town Oats with the Oat Milk. And the winner is… Congratulations, Seeductive Foods. I have to say that all the judges fell in love with this marinated feta. When we were trying, everyone putting their mouth kind of at the same time and we were looking at each other, so surprised. It was quite a fun moment. I wish we had recorded that moment. It literally just tastes like feta, but it's made from seeds, apple cider vinegar, and a delicious olive oil marinade. And as I said, like we love so much. We just wanted to put this product on everything.

30:56 Jessi - Amazing. Congratulations. All right, now our next category is breakfast.

31:01 Jenna - We again have four finalists for the breakfast category. So the first one is Full of Beans Kitchen, their pancake and waffle mix. The next is Crafty Counters Wunder Eggs, then LL's Kitchen’s Sweetheart Crunch Granola and Oat of the Ordinary’s Blueberry Cinnamon Oatmeal. And the winner is Full of Beans Kitchen actually demoed at our mic drop party. So a lot of people got to try it. And if they didn't try it, they got to smell it because the entire place smelled so delicious from this pancake and waffle mix. And it just so happens to be gluten free, top nine allergen free, so anyone can enjoy it. It's also packed with protein from their main ingredient and what I think is like a very trendy ingredient this year, which is fava beans. But you would never know that it is made from beans and mostly made from beans. The mix makes the most delicious pancakes that definitely don't make you feel weighed down. They actually just power you through your day. And we've been joking in the comments I saw that Monica's here and she has a, Monica Watrous from Food Business News, has an Instagram where she tests if things will waffle. And I can guarantee that this winter will waffle. So maybe try that. Try this one out. We loved this.

32:26 Patricia - And I also like how some brands are like the Goddess Mousse in this one. They are also adding more protein because I feel some other pancakes that I try, it's more like, you know, just the carbs and not really full of like the other benefits. So I'm I'm liking this this new trend, I would say. I agree.

32:47 Jessi - Yeah. Congratulations. All right. Our next category is dips, spreads and nut butters, which I'm very excited for.

32:56 Patricia - Yeah, so we had three finalists. One Trick Pony, the Kinda Crunchy Peanut Butter, Rooted Fare Black Sesame Crunch Butter, and Growee with the Curry Zucchini. And the winner One Trick Pony! Congratulations! And I have to say that this one really surprised us. We thought we knew about peanut butter until now. It's crazy how we were impressed when we were selecting a peanut butter, but the ingredients are only peanuts and salt. But the one trick is that the peanuts are Argentinian peanuts. which are naturally sweeter than other peanuts. And we were just like blown away by this ridiculous, delicious peanut butter. And I don't think that like after you try this, I don't think that you can ever go back to the OG. Like it's literally that good.

33:54 Jenna - Yeah, I'm a self plain peanut butter fiend. And this is the best I've like made everyone I know try this. Because it doesn't make sense to me. Like it's literally peanuts and salt, but they have managed to find these amazing, really sweet peanuts. And I almost think it kind of tastes like peanut frosting. Like it is just so good. So I'm looking at branding. So cute.

34:18 Jessi - Yeah, congratulations. Amazing. All right, our next category is spices and condiments. I don't know about anybody else, but I think we're all going to have about all the tabs open with adding to cart all of the winners and finalists that we need to try. Everybody's snacks and food budgets is expanding right now to try all these, at least that's for me. So let's move on to spices and condiments.

34:43 Jenna - So we have three finalists in this category. Basically this category is just like anything that makes us a better home chef is a great way to put it and all of these do. So the first finalist is Lucky 22's Secret Blend. Then we have Matriark Foods Gentle Marinara Sauce and Desert Dust's Original Desert Dust. And the winner is… This is such a fun one. So Desert Dust is a small batch all purpose seasoning blend that's definitely elevating all of our meals. But the thing that's really fun about this is that it's a seasoning and the first ingredient is ground dates. This is so interesting because it rounds out the savory flavor really well, which is like a touch of sweet that you don't even really notice. Like I've been putting this on eggs, but it gives it like a fuller flavor and it replaces sugar in typical barbecue wraps or seasonings often have sugar in them. to help with browning, and this one used dates instead. So we just thought this was so innovative, so delicious. As I said, I've been putting it on eggs, but it's amazing on vegetables, rice, like just an amazing all-purpose seasoning blend that we think is really shaking up, literally shaking up, I didn't mean to do that, the all-purpose seasoning space. So we're very excited about this one.

36:08 Jessi - Amazing. Congratulations.

36:09 Patricia - I cannot wait to try. I know. Now that you're talking about all the finalists, I'm like, oh my God, I need to buy them because it's just like missing them so much.

36:19 Jessi - I love it. Alright, our next category is oils and vinegars.

36:23 Patricia - Okay, so for this one we have three finalists. They are the Single and Fat, the Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Sideyard Shrubs with the Strawberry-Infused Vinegar, and the Bellemille. I hope I said that right. Is that how you say it? Bell-Mill? Bell-Mill? Bell-Mill with the Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Sorry. And the winner is… Sideyard Shrubs! Congratulations! So they make the tastiest fruit-infused vinegar. And I love that it's like simple ingredients with just real fruit and raw apple cider vinegar. They literally make the freshest dressing, spritzes, or cocktail. And what we love most about the side yard is their support for small scale, regenerative organic farms and highlighting seasonal fruits. And I also got really obsessed with this packaging. I just like love opening my refrigerator and like see this packaging. It's just so cute.

37:30 Jessi - Yeah, the branding is amazing. Oh, congratulations. All right, our next category is kids, which we're very excited about. And we actually get kids involved in the process, which is so amazing. So yeah, Jenna, tell us about it.

37:45 Jenna - Yeah, I'm happy to share the finalists of the kids category. So the first finalist is Begin Health's Growing Up Prebiotics. Then we have Theo's Mat's Eco-Friendly Disposable Place Mat, Kekoa Foods' Shawarma Artichoke and Cauliflower Squeeze Pouch, and Beyond the Bib's Thai Green Coconut Sauce. And the winner is… Begin Health, Begin Health makes probiotics and fiber ridiculously easy for kids with a powder that you can mix into any drink or food. This is made with chicory root fiber and the same prebiotics. This is really interesting and I did research on this. the same prebiotics that are actually found in human breast milk. And there's no human breast milk actually involved, but it is molecularly identical to the prebiotics found in human breast milk. So this product is definitely designed for kids to grow up with the healthiest gut microbiomes, which is a topic that we're all starting to care a lot more about. So we're really excited to see a cool supplement in the kids category, in addition to all the awesome foods and beverages that we saw in the kids category. Obviously, I did not try this myself, but we had some awesome kid judges try these out and we're really excited to find such an innovative and cool supplement in the kids space.

39:10 Jessi - Amazing. Congratulations.

39:12 Patricia - I also like their branding, like the little, I don't know, it's like a penguin icon or something.

39:17 Jessi - So cute. All right, our next category is coffee and tea.

39:23 Patricia - And we have four finalists for this one. So the Malu Coffee with the Classic House Blend, Good Pharma with No Worries Herb and Jujube Seed Tea, and the Three Keys Coffee with the Cafe Blend and Open Eye Masala Chai. And the winner is… Open Eye! So, Open Eye Masala Shai is a concentrated, ridiculously delicious and literally so easy to prepare chai. You honestly just have to add milk and it's ready to enjoy. And it's crafted with very clean ingredients and sweetened with honey, which I love instead of being, you know, other like sweeteners and sugar. So I appreciate that. We love that open eye support for a women run tea farm in India and their commitment to a small batch production. And literally whenever I take one sip, it just take me like to, I don't know, like I feel that like I'm traveling and another part of the world is just so good.

40:30 Jenna - It's opening your eyes. I'm sure that's the point.

40:37 Patricia - Oh, I see now. Okay. It took me a second to put together what you said.

40:45 Jessi - Amazing. Yeah, that's so cool. Congratulations. All right. Our next category, which, as we mentioned at the beginning, it's our first time with the pet category, our first time involving other species judges. And if you haven't checked out on our Instagram already, Kiki on our team, her corgis were some of the judge, some of our pet judges. And she made an amazing video chronicling a day in the life of a pet judge for the Shelfie Awards. Make sure to check out that video. But we're very excited to have the pet category for the very first time.

41:14 Jenna - So we have four finalists in the pet category. The first one is Petaluma's Roasted Peanut Butter and Sweet Potato Baked Food. Then we have a Better Treat Raw You Can See Salmon Dog Food. Next we, oh it says Cacao Foods, I think we have some That is in fact Homescape Pets Mussel Mobility and the last one is Bundle x Joy wild caught Salmon Superfood Jerky Treats and the winner is Petaluma! Woo! Petaluma makes roasted peanut butter and sweet potato dog food. And it is the most environmentally friendly way that you can possibly feed your pets. They have literally thought about everything in their supply chain. Really the most thoughtful supply chain of dog food that we have ever seen. but it also is still really caring about the nutrition of for your dog. So it packs in a ton of protein with a complete amino acid profile and digestible forms of all essential vitamins and minerals for your pup. Another one that we just love the branding of and all the dogs that we shared this with ate it right up. It was definitely hard to judge what dogs liked and didn't like because they like a lot of things, but we did see some consistency across the board with Petaluma and also they have been an awesome member of the Startup CPG community. So we're really grateful for Petaluma's team for being involved from the get-go and also helping us like understand the world of pet food and wanting to include pet food in the shelf use. So really excited about this new category and what it will mean next year. And now I'm actually going to pass it off for the next category to some new judges. I'm going to bring them up here.

43:12 Jessi - Oh, yeah. Bring in our resident branding expert.

43:17 Kirk - Hey, what's up? Can you guys hear me OK? Yeah. All right, great. So Andy and I, a long time ago, met through Strive CPG for a holiday party and became fast friends. And since then, we have been learned that we are now judges for the Shelfies Award. Now, the Shelfies Award is the, this one's for the overall brand and design concept. And I am Kirk Faisal. I'm the founder and creative director of Mind the Font, and I'm here with my good friend.

43:42 Andy - Andy Kurtts, founder and creative director of Buttermilk Creative.

43:45 Kirk - And normally we say that for our podcast, but today we're saying it for the Shelfies. And we're going to go over the top three Shelfies. Andy, you want to go first?

43:52 Andy - Yeah, let's do it. All right, man. Do it. So the finalists are Jeez Louise, Savorly, Mala Girl.

44:02 Kirk - And oh, my gosh, I'm breaking on the last one. I apologize. Up to Good. Yeah.

44:08 Andy - And the winner is. Geez Louise! The image is coming, maybe. Yeah, we did it. Go Google them real quick because their packaging and their branding is amazing. We really loved their logo just by itself. That really struck us at first, color-wise, typography. We loved how the G sort of just melted into the O. below. And then Kirk, what about that packaging?

44:53 Kirk - Okay, so here's the thing about the packaging. It's, it's so, I don't know, I just, it just felt, made me feel like warm inside. It kind of said what it was. It, even like the, the can itself painted a landscape almost with the differentiation between colors. The G's, Louise, the foundation. I just, I, I just was like, we both came about it. And keep in mind that we looked, this is no joke, we looked at about 450 different brands. And I clicked through each one and this, these four, the Mala Girl illustration, the Jeez Louise, the bird on Up to Good, and then the Savorly Packaging all just stood out. And I told Andy, and we both had a list of about seven, and we had all of these in our seven. So it's, it was very, and we're pretty in tune on that stuff together. So congratulations, Geez Louise, your packaging is fucking dope. Sorry, I'm cussing. I cuss a lot, but.

45:49 Andy - We also really liked that they're with, you know, like we said, branding is holistic. It's the whole thing. It's not just the visuals. And so we loved how Geez Louise, it's a woman owned business and they advocate for clean drinking water. They give three cents to indigenous led organizations supporting clean water initiatives. So they're the whole package. We just really like and then reading that background and where they're based. On indigenous land. I mean, it's just, it's just the whole package. So we really congrats to Jesus. They're doing, doing great stuff and all the fun pun intended.

46:23 Kirk - So Jesus. Thanks to Startup CPG for allowing us to present the Shelfie Grand Award and love all that you do. This is so much fun. And whoever's involved in this community, you are truly fortunate to have these powerful women who really run the show because we know Daniel's not doing shit. So they're the ones I'm totally kidding. I love Daniel. But we love you guys so much. Thank you so much for involving us. And we look forward to this every year. So thank you.

46:52 Jessi - Thanks, Kirk and Andy. We really appreciate you. And if you haven't listened to Kirk and Kurrts, Kirk and Andy's podcast, like right after this, go listen to it. We've also had them on the Startup CPG podcast for a Packaging 101 episode. Check that out. They are incredible branding experts and resources. So thank you. We love that they are involved in the Shelfies Awards.

47:13 Kirk - You bet. And also listen to Jessi Freitag on the Startup CPG podcast. She's pretty awesome, too. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Thank you. Okay, can we go now?

47:24 Jessi - Yeah. I think that concludes everything. Unless Patty or Jenna, you have anything, anything else. Thank you for joining today's ceremony. And thank you to the hundreds of brands that apply. Congratulations to our 22 winners, the most winners we've ever had, which is amazing. Emerging brands are the lifeblood of Startup CPG. And so we love this time of year that it is our great honor to get to honor you. So stay on the lookout for applying for next year if you want to apply next year. And then also we're celebrating in person this next week in New York City and LA. So head to our Eventbrite page and you know, get links to those events so you can join and celebrate in person. But thanks so much for joining today and celebrating and hyping up our winners and finalists. Just congratulations to everyone. And thank you to the CBC team that put in all their time judging and making everything happen. And so we can celebrate all our incredible community members. Thanks, everyone.

48:24 Patricia - Thank you, Jesse, for hosting this. And thanks for everyone to join us. We appreciate all the love that you share with all the brands here today. And as Jesse said, if you want to join us at the event, we will be so excited to see you. Jenna will be at the New York event. Daniel and myself, we are going to be at the Los Angeles event. So we can't wait to see you there and just celebrate the innovation in our industry. And doesn't matter if you win or not, we are all changing the CPG industry. And I love that for all of us. Yes.

48:54 Jessi - Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone. And have a great rest of the day. Yeah, bye. Thank you for listening in today. I'm so honored you joined me for this conversation. And I love hearing from you all with feedback, suggestions, or if you just want to say hi at podcast at startupcpg.com. or you can find me on LinkedIn. If you liked this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend or colleague, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes, and maybe even leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you aren't yet in our Slack community of founders and experts, we'd love to see you there. You can get the free invite at StartupCPG.com and find all our other awesome resources there, like webinars, databases, the blog, the magazine, and virtual and in-person events. And if you found yourself rocking out to our intro and outro music, which I do every single time, make sure to check out the Super Fantastics on Spotify. It's the band of our Startup CPG founder, Daniel Scharff. I'm Jessi Freitag, your host and producer, and on behalf of the whole team at Startup CPG, thank you for being here and see you next week.