The Startup CPG Podcast

Brian Bethke
Up to now, you couldn't grow ginseng sustainably because if you go and forage it from the forest, that's not really scalable. If you grow it in a field, you have to use pesticides and that's not it. Those build up in the root and that's not really healthy or desirable. So were able to partner with a company and make a product that is truly unique and something that you don't see out there on the shelf yet. There's no other beverage out there that focuses on ginseng as the hero ingredient. There's zero caffeine, but it gives you that boost of energy without the caffeine crash. And it's the perfect 2:30 in the afternoon drink because it's not going to keep you up at night. And it's just amazing stuff.

00:55
Grace Kennedy
Hello, everyone, this is Grace and I'm here with another founder feature. Today I'm talking to Brian Bethke, the founder of Bare Maple Farms. Bare Maple makes a sparkling ginseng tonic that is naturally sweetened with maple water. They're on a mission to craft innovative, functional beverages that help nourish both the body and mind while fostering a sustainable future for the planet. Brian and I talk all about his prior career in the music industry, the feedback that led him to overhaul Bare Maple's branding, and how he views all no's as a challenge to do better the next time. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast.

01:47
Grace Kennedy
I am Grace, as you know, and I am here with Brian Bethke, the founder of one of my favorite members of the startup CBG community, if I'll be honest. Bear Maple. Welcome to the show, Brian.

02:00
Brian Bethke
Thank you, Grace. I'm excited to be here.

02:02
Grace Kennedy
Yes. So excited to have you. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that Brian has their Shelfie award in the background. But if you're listening, Brian Bethke and Bear Maple Farms were the winners in our drink category in 2024 for the shelfies. So. So I'd love for you to introduce yourself and Bear Maple Farms to our listeners.

02:23
Brian Bethke
Yeah. Bear Maple Farms is a sparkling beverage that focuses on ginseng as the hero ingredient. Ginseng is amazing for supporting immunity and mental clarity and focus as well as stress resilience. It's an adaptogen, which basically just means it helps your body adapt to stress. It is only 5 to 10 calories because it uses maple water as the natural sweetener and it's just really simple ingredients from the farm and the forest. There's nothing superfluous in this. There's no sugar substitutes, there's no stevia, there's no erythritol. It's just really natural, high quality ingredients. Ingredients with integrity.

03:04
Grace Kennedy
Yes. And it's also so delicious. I feel like ginseng can get a bad rap as a little bit of an intense adaptogen or whatever it technically is. But if the maple water really balances it out beautifully. And I'm curious, for those who aren't sort of aware of what maple water is, could you let our listeners know about what exactly maple water is?

03:26
Brian Bethke
Yeah. Maple water is the SAP that comes out of the tree before it's boiled down in a maple syrup. And it is amazing stuff. It's basically just water that's filtered through the cells of a tree. So it takes out everything bad and instills it with nutrients and minerals and electrolytes. It is super healthy stuff. And in modern beverage, oftentimes we put things through ro reverse osmosis and remove absolutely everything. This is like nature's version of that, but it's way better because it doesn't remove everything. It keeps the good stuff in there and just takes out the bad stuff and instills it as well with 2% sugar content, which makes it nature's most perfect natural sweetener.

04:09
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, it's amazing. And it's so perfectly sweet, but not too sweet, which I love in a beverage. And I love too that you get natural energy from the ginseng without feeling like over caffeinated or jittery or anything like that. And when I had my samples of Bare Meeple. Cause whenever I have them, they go so quick. I would have them in the afternoon as a little afternoon pick me up. And yeah, I'm just such a fan. But I'd love to hear a little bit more about why you decided to create this product and sort of how the idea to combine ginseng and maple water came to be.

04:45
Brian Bethke
Yeah. I originally started out in the music industry. So I spent 15 years making amplifiers, guitars and effects pedals for all my childhood heroes. So people like Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, Paul Simon, Bob Weir from Grateful Dead, Joe Walsh from the Eagles, like all these people who inspired me to start playing guitar and learning guitar. I did that for 15 years and sold the business in 2020. And that was right in parallel with the Pandemic. And we lived on the Upper west side and still have a place on the Upper west side in New York City. And the city cleared out and were like, okay. We ended up moving up to the Catskills, which is about three hours north of New York City. And it's beautiful rolling hills and waterfalls and bubbling streams. And our backyard was all maple trees.

05:35
Brian Bethke
And being the entrepreneurial minded person that I am, I said to my daughter, who was six at the time, anna, let's go out. We're going to tap the maple trees and make maple syrup. And we did. And that both of us discovered maple water. Anna was like, hey dad, this tastes delicious. This should be a beverage. And I'm like, yeah, I think you're right. But even cooler than that, we discovered that ginseng grows naturally in all the forests throughout the maple forests of the Northeast. They're symbiotic plants. They grow together in nature. And so I started experimenting with grinding up the ginseng and brewing it like a tea in the maple water. So you get the tea like earthiness of the ginseng with the delicate sweetness of maple water. And they go so well together.

06:19
Brian Bethke
Like mother Nature really did not mess up on that one. Putting those two ingredients together. She really had something going on there and it made so much sense. And then from there it was about a two and a half year process to find the perfect ginseng. Because not all ginsengs are the same. There are is something called ginsengides within ginseng, which are the medicinal compounds that lend ginseng. It's what it's so well known for. And as I started doing the deep dive in all these studies, and there are thousands and thousands of studies out there on ginseng. It's one of the most studied, like legendary adaptogenic herbs out there. It's like the Taylor Swift of adaptogens.

07:01
Brian Bethke
People are borderline obsessed with it and huge fans and will over and over we meet people who are like, oh yeah, I take ginseng on a daily basis. And so I went on the deep dive and figured out that if you grow ginseng hydroponically, you can speed up the growth process because it tricks the root into thinking that the seasons are going as bad up rate. And that concentrates the ginsenosides within the root. So you're concentrating those compounds that are giving it the health benefits. And the ginsenosides are, there's about 60 of them. They have names like RG3 and RG5 and RK1 and you'll read about them over and over in all those studies. And so I latched onto RG3 as okay, this is going to be my proxy for quality.

07:47
Brian Bethke
And I went to every single supplier out there and was like, okay, can you give me ginseng with RG3 in it? And I got tons of no's until we figured out that the secret is hydroponically growing it. And it's an agricultural like this is a technological thing that gives us. It's the timing is just so perfect. It's like, why now? Right? It's because up to now you couldn't grow ginseng sustainably because if you go and forage it from the forest, that's not really scalable. If you grow it in a field, you have to use pesticides and that's not it. Those build up in the root and that's not really healthy or desirable. So were able to partner with a company and make a product that is truly unique and something that you don't see out there on the shelf yet.

08:38
Brian Bethke
There's no other beverage out there that focuses on ginseng as the hero ingredient. There's zero caffeine, but it gives you that boost of energy without the caffeine crash. And it's the perfect 2:30 in the afternoon drink because it's not going to keep you up at night. And it's just amazing stuff.

08:54
Grace Kennedy
That's so cool. And I love hearing a little bit about like it feels like you're a little bit of a scientist like tinkering with all the ginseng and maybe some of your like music creation brain of like working in that way. It came to be very creative thinking for sure too. Discovering this way of growing it that will work for a business on a larger scale. And I'm curious too, on the other side of, you know, you decided you wanted to create this, you figured out the way to get the ginseng in the way that was sustainable and scalable. What about the other part of like just creating a CPG company when you've never done that before? What sort of resources did you turn to?

09:35
Grace Kennedy
Did you have any like friends or mentors or how did you kind of go from like I have this idea that sounds really good to like now I have a packaged product.

09:46
Brian Bethke
I was very green coming into cpg. I had no idea what I was doing and I knew that was a weak spot and that I needed to find some really good mentors and advisors. And having built up my first business, I'm very lucky to have that network and have the resources to put together a great team to find mentors and Advisors and I just started reaching out to people and talking to a lot of different founders. Startup CPG is an amazing resource, a source of inspiration, of connecting with other founders who are going through the same challenges. And that's a huge part of it is just there's people out there who have gone through the things, all this stuff before they've gone through it, they've had the failures.

10:29
Brian Bethke
The best thing to do is to reach out to them, asked lots and lots of questions and get to understand how do I do this. I don't necessarily need to go through those failures and lessons and learn them over again because there are people out there who've already done that and most often they're very gracious and willing to share.

10:47
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. Finding people who know more than you is like the most important thing in this life, no matter what field you're in. But as we said, particularly in business when you're creating your own. Another thing I was thinking of is after you went through this sort of like two and a half year long journey of like figuring out how to create this product, obviously it is as you said, a kind of first of its kind product to market. So when you did launch it, how did you like find the reaction from potential retailers and how did you work to communicate what Baremple is and like what's so special about the product?

11:24
Brian Bethke
That was a bit of a journey as well. I started out very focused on the maple water piece of it and I learned pretty early on that the maple water is, it's not the highlight. The thing that is unique about this product really is the ginseng. It's. That's what gives you the boost of energy. That is what is so unique and that it helped to pull back on the maple water and focus it on that is more of the natural sweetener because that's really what it is. And in June of last year I went to Bed Net and I was semifinalist at the Bevnet summer showdown. I was so excited to get up there on stage and I get up there and of course it's the judges are all icons within the industry. This is one of the biggest conferences out there.

12:09
Brian Bethke
One of the judges is the buyer for Whole Foods. And so I go up there, I give the presentation of my life and I think I'm going to win this thing. I'm super confident and I give it and I turn around and all the judges are looking down at the cans and it, there's kind of a silence for a minute and I'm thinking, oh, this doesn't look good. And the feedback that I got was that, Brian, the liquid is absolutely delicious. This is really good. You've done great with this formulation, but on the packaging, you've got about 13 lines of text. You've got a maple leaf, you've got a ginseng root. There's so much going on here.

12:46
Brian Bethke
You've got three seconds on the shelf to get your customer's attention, and you've gotta be super focused and know how to communicate very succinctly to that customer. And that's the moment where I realized that I had put that two and a half years into doing the product itself. I just needed to put that same focus and effort into the packaging. And that was something that I neglected. And so after that, I went home, I crawled in bed and was in tears. It was really hard. It was tough feedback to get. But at the same time, I love those moments of massive failure, because that's when I learned the most. Those are the moments that end up being pivotal. And that feedback was so crucial in expanding the potential of our brand way beyond what it ever could have been.

13:40
Brian Bethke
Before I went out, I got up the next morning and I called 15 different designers and branding agencies and did the whole interview process and found multiple really good options and ended up finding Paula Grant, who was number two person in body armor. And of course, body armor sold for $1.6 billion. Biggest exit for a beverage company. So she kind of knows what she's doing right. And a couple other exits, and that was huge. We did a whole rebranding. We did it in three to four months and relaunched, and it was the best thing that could have ever happened. And it really did expand the potential of the brand.

14:26
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And it looks so great. For anyone who hasn't seen it, you should give it a quick Google. But the. The new branding looks really great and does kind of communicate a little bit more, really. What? Bare Maple Farms is very exciting to see. And sometimes the harsh feedback is exactly what you need in the moment, even though it feels hard to get at that time. So now that you guys have gone through this whole rebrand of your packaging, what has been your approach to getting it on the shelves so that you can make that impact with consumers?

15:00
Brian Bethke
We're focused. About 80% of our sales is focused on the retail channels, natural and conventional. And this carries over a little bit from being in the music industry. What were really successful in with the music industry is working with Sam Ash and Guitar center and Sweetwater and partnering very closely with those retail channels so that it's a win situation for everyone and everyone benefits. And so that was my experience. There's kind of a formula that I've put together for it. I know how it works. And so 80% of our sales is retail. And we are in about 300 stores in the New York City metro area right now. And we're expanding nationally through 2025 with our broker and distribution channels. We're in with Kahi and looking to expand with UNFI as well and looking to land those tier one retail stores through 2025.

15:57
Brian Bethke
The thing that really drives that though is the on the ground field sales team that we have people on the ground visiting the stores, looking at the shelves. First off, are we on the shelf? Did this stuff make it out of the back room onto the shelf? Is it merchandise properly? What are we next to and how are customers interacting with it? Do we need to support the store with demos, with BOGOs or promos? All that kind of stuff is crucial because the worst thing that can ever happen is you get data back from all your stores and it's telling you that stuff is not moving through that the velocity you're seeing is not up to your expectations, but you don't know why.

16:35
Brian Bethke
And so having that field sales team out there on a hyper local level, supporting the stores is crucial to building it in the early stages.

16:45
Grace Kennedy
Yes, totally. I hear that again and again from people and I feel like it cannot be overstated. And another thing I was thinking about, as you were saying, that is also the expenses that come with growing and expanding into retail and you know, having a field team who can go check things out or do demos or brokers or all these things. And how have you managed kind of that push and pull of expanding and as we're in 2025, expanding nationally and all the prices that come with free fills or whatever the retailer is asking, and then also the field team, how are you kind of managing some of those expenses alongside, you know, still being a growing new stage business?

17:25
Brian Bethke
I'm. Luckily I have an amazing team. So I've. Rosabelle is our head of sales. She has 10 plus years in the CPG industry and I'm so lucky to have found her. As well as John Henry, who's our operations manager again. He worked for Spins and Cahi. So they make up for my blind spots in a way that is absolutely amazing. And her understanding, both of their understanding of trade spending and the stuff that we should be spending on, should we be spending 20%, should we be spending 40%? There's such a huge range and me coming from the music industry, if I go and have those conversations myself, they're going to sell me on like 40% trade spend and I'm not going to know what the baseline is.

18:12
Brian Bethke
So I depend, I lean on those people who are the experts within their fields, within their roles to help make those decisions. And that's something that I could not do without building that team. And my team is something that I'm most proud of because we're all people who are talented, bring a lot of talent to the table and skill as well as are value driven and people who believe integrity and honesty and sustainability and are excited to work for a brand that is looking to have a product that is good for your mind, it's good for your body and it's good for the planet.

18:52
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love that. And it sounds like you have really great people on your team, as you said, who do know more than you do. And again it kind of just comes back to kind of even if you don't have someone technically on your team as you do, maybe even just sending someone a slack on startup CPG or asking those questions of like what is normal for trade spend and what should I expect when I'm going into this conversation with a retailer? I'm sort of on the opposite side of the retailer end. But what has been the response you've seen from consumers as you have expanded and made it into more retailers now? And you know, how have you seen that response?

19:23
Brian Bethke
The response has been really robust and really encouraging. I love interacting with customers. I learned so much from it and I've always been hesitant to go up against energy brands, especially because there's so much caffeine based energy brands out there that are sell at a really low price point. And so we've positioned ourselves very much as a functional beverage that sits in next to the kombuchas and mushroom elixirs and plant based tonics and but increasingly that set is integrated pretty seamlessly with the energy set as well in stores and our customers. When we talk to the customers so often they'll say, oh, I had an addiction to Red Bull and was drinking way too much caffeine and this is perfect, this is going to replace my Red Bull.

20:11
Brian Bethke
But meanwhile, if I went out and went to a lot of the retail channel, the people within the industry and said that they'd laugh me out of the room. So it's really interesting to hear that directly from our customers and hear People say, oh, this is like a better Celsius. And it's like, oh, wow. That we, our customers, are perceiving this as an alternative to a lot of the traditional energy drinks out there. And that was a big surprise and really encouraging.

20:38
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I was literally just thinking that as you were talking about energy drinks, I was like, yeah, I would so much rather grab a bare maple before a long road trip than like a Celsius, which I've done before and made me feel insane. But I was like, I wish there was bare maple at the rest stop. But, you know, one day when you bring that, if you were to say that to, like, someone in the buy or something like that, they might laugh you out of the room. So how do you kind of bring back some of this, like, consumer information you're getting to buyers to communicate that? Because, yeah, with the positioning of bare maple, I might not necessarily assume your competition is like a Celsius.

21:11
Grace Kennedy
But then when I have bare maple and I, like, in my life, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a great energy. And, yeah, I'm not going to have my second coffee of the day. I'm going to have a bare maple. How do you kind of communicate that when that might not be, like, where the buyer's mind would initially go to?

21:26
Brian Bethke
It's so important to build traction. And there's kind of two ways you do that. One is the data story, and building a really strong data story, that's really going to be the most compelling argument when we get in front of buyers and saying, hey, look, this is the velocity that we're doing in these sets of stores, and we can take that model and move it over to your set of stores. This is the shelf, the set that we do best in. We'll put you in there, we'll run some promos, and we'll make sure that it's a massive success. And at that point, it's just math, right? It's like, okay, how. These are the numbers. This is the test case that shows what the velocity is and the margins, and you just do the math on it.

22:10
Brian Bethke
The other option, you know, if you don't have that data story built up yet, you get anecdotal evidence and just going out. We've collected videos of our customers talking about the beverage. And that stuff is really fun because it makes it very human and very. People relate to it instantly. And you watch the thing, you're like, oh, yeah. Yep. That person is just like me. And I agree. So that those are the two things that we are. And that's kind of our mission for 2025 is building up that data story so that we can. The things that we've seen on anecdotal level, then we have the numbers to prove that, to show that this is what we said was going to happen, actually happened. And here's the proof of it.

22:59
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. Having both the human and the data feels so important and also really powerful when it's communicated to somebody with both of those elements. Something were talking about before we started recording was just about all of the many road bumps that come with starting your own business, which, you know, you're now on your second go of starting a business, so you're a bit seasoned, but every business is different. And we talked a little bit about what happened at Bevnet with your branding and needing to rebrand. But I'm curious what other like major road bump or challenge felt like really hard in the moment that you were either able to work through or still trying to figure out a solution to?

23:41
Brian Bethke
Yeah, I mean those things have happened all along the way. It really, the first time I would say that it happened was when I graduated college and I knew without a doubt that I was going to go into finance. My dad was in finance. He worked, he was chief financial officer at Prudential. I was a economics and Chinese major. I loved diving in the spread sheets. I taught myself to read 10ks and do a fundamental analysis of inequity. I loved it. And then, so I was graduating, it was the last semester of school. I set up all the interviews with Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers and Deutsche bank and all those top tier banks. And I went in, I did those interviews and guess which one I got? I none of them. I failed all of those interviews.

24:29
Brian Bethke
It was a complete disaster, total failure. And I was like, okay, well, I guess it's plan B now. Except I didn't have a plan B. I ended up washing dishes at Taste of India in Middlebury for that summer and then decided, okay, I'm going to go to China and I'll live in China for one and a half years. I'll do some interviews and just figure it out from there. It'll look great on my resume. And so I did that and I ended up finding a job at an international trade company. In this trade company. I showed up to the interview, the HR manager handed me a form and the form was entirely in Chinese. And I did not expect this.

25:04
Brian Bethke
I filled it out the best I can, handed it back, went through the interview, went home and I'm like, I'm never going to hear from these people ever again. Thank God that's over. I woke up the next morning and got a call and it's the HR manager. He says, which is the Da Laoban is the big boss, is flying in from Japan, he wants to meet up with you. Can you come back for a 3 o'clock round of interviews again? So I went back and I got the job. I did. Okay. So I was 24 years old and all of a sudden working at an international trade company with 300 people in it. I was the only American.

25:43
Brian Bethke
And it was a fascinating, really cool journey through that I got to know how to make amplifiers and got to know how to source products from factories and work with factories over in China. And from there I was like, oh, okay, so I can use this now to make amplifiers, guitars and effects pedals. And that's when I started manufacturing our. Started, launched my first company and started doing everything over in China. That was a complete disaster because the first run of product was all broken and we had to switch up our paradigm then. And we made the sub assemblies in China, shipped them to the us. I put together a group of people to do the final assembly in the US and we eventually became really big and turned it into two international brands that did fantastically well and eventually led to the exit.

26:32
Brian Bethke
But if I hadn't been failed in those interviews, I would have been miserable in finance. And the fact that happened, as painful as it was the best thing that could have ever happened because that's really what launched me on my entrepreneurial journey.

26:46
Grace Kennedy
Oh my God, that's such a good story. And I feel like I hope there are some college students who are hearing this right now so that they can hear if they're currently interviewing for jobs and stressed out of their mind that even if they don't get a single one, there's still a wonderful career that could come from it. Because obviously it's hard to get a job out there.

27:04
Brian Bethke
It is, it's challenging.

27:06
Grace Kennedy
But that's, yeah, just a great story and I'm sure primed you well for some of the NOS and setbacks that you get in CPG too. Because I have heard from many founders that you just have to be so okay with someone giving you a no and you're going to get a million no's and I don't know if that's something you've experienced too.

27:24
Brian Bethke
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's just My personality, I'm a very competitive person. I'm a very curious person. And when I get a no, I take it as a challenge. I'm like, okay, this, how can I turn that into a yes? And what is the piece that I'm missing here that I need to improve on in order to get that yes? And often it's a really simple thing. One of the sales lessons that I learned very early from my previous business partner was that when people call up our company and they're really upset about something, it's not because they don't like our brand. It's usually because they love our brand. But there was something along the way that didn't meet their expectation.

28:05
Brian Bethke
And if you can close that gap and figure out what that one thing is and then fix it, then they're going to be an even bigger fan of your company and of your product. So I love having that challenge. And it's something that really gets me fired up.

28:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And I've heard people say, you know, a no is just not yet. Unless, I guess, you know, maybe someone would really give you a no. But yeah, I think that's a great mindset to have. Obviously you've, you know, you're in your second business, as I've said. But I'm curious too, if you have any, like, go to advice you give to maybe younger or not even younger, but first time entrepreneurs who, you know, haven't done this before and kind of don't know where to start, like maybe they have an idea and they want to turn it into something or they have a product but it's, you know, only it's still really new and they just feel kind of overwhelmed.

28:59
Grace Kennedy
By entering the CPG industry in the entrepreneurial space, do you have any advice that you offer to people in those positions?

29:07
Brian Bethke
Yeah, I think as I've gotten further in my journey, I've realized how valuable it is to find people who've done it before and to find mentors there. Some of the other founders that I'm friends with talk about finding mentors when they're super young in college. The way to do this is it's not talked about a lot. It's not the best to go to someone, be like, oh, hey, can you be my mentor? Because that's putting a lot of work on them. It's like, wait a minute, so now I'm supposed to teach you everything I know? What does that even mean? I don't even know you. But if you approach it as, first off, do a lot of research and know what you're talking about.

29:46
Brian Bethke
Have really intelligent questions and find someone who you want to emulate or who is in the space that you want to go in the direction that you want to go in and make friends with that person. Say, hey, can we put an hour on your schedule at this particular time? And then go up and ask them as many questions as you can. Write everything down and walk away with two or three action items. Make sure that you do those action items and before you get off the phone with them or off your zoom call with them, you say, hey, can we look at our calendars? I would love to set up a follow up next month. Does this time slot work for you? And then I've done that with people.

30:27
Brian Bethke
One of my best mentors and advisors, David Eben, I mean, we never called it a mentorship and it's just blossomed into this humongous friendship. He's a friend of my family and one of my biggest supporters now. And you can see my face just lights up as I talk about him because he's brilliant and he's always there for me. And he knows because I take that so seriously, that anytime I talk to them, I'm very prepared. And when I get off, I'm going to follow up on those action items and come back the next month and say, okay, here's what I did, here's what worked, here's what didn't work. And this is what I'm thinking, what do you think based on your experience? What did you do in these situations?

31:07
Brian Bethke
And having those experience shares is so valuable and something that you don't need to wait until you get older in your career to do. Start early and do it often and take those risks. It's kind of scary to do those things and I never did when I was early on and I wish I had.

31:27
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's such great advice. And I love how you broke it down too. Just like, not to just. I feel like people sometimes are told like, find a mentor. And it's like, how do I find a mentor? But I love how you broke it down into like how to actually approach it. And I think something you said that feels so important to me and then I heard from, you know, people further along who get asked to be mentors is coming with a time and saying, does this time work for you? Instead of saying, you know, let me know when you're free, because then you're just putting more work on that person again. Instead of just offering here three times, that might work. And do these work for you. So that just feels like a key thing I wanted to pull out.

32:03
Grace Kennedy
But as we're sort of nearing the end of the show, I'd love to hear a little bit about what Bare Maple has to come for the rest of 2025. You know, we're in the first month of the year just ending as this podcast comes out. But what's to come for Bare Maple this year?

32:19
Brian Bethke
So we're expanding nationally this year. I was actually I was just on an NBC morning show that was fantastic. So the visibility is getting out there. We are doing really well on Amazon right now and expanding our store count through Kehi and Feet on the Street. It's all about execution in 2025 and I couldn't be more thrilled. It's this is the fun part. We've set everything up and have a great product and now we just get to go out and tell people about it and introduce people to a wonderfully healthy drink that is great for your mind and body and sustainable for the planet.

32:55
Grace Kennedy
I love it. And how can the startup CPG community and our listeners support Baremple?

33:00
Brian Bethke
I love connecting with people and especially other founders out there. It's so important to have this community, have people that you can go through those tough moments to call upon and say, hey, what am I supposed to do when you went through this, what happened? So feel free to please if you see me at a trade show or feel free to reach out to me and excited to meet you. And yeah, order us on Amazon. Our social media handle is DrinkBear Maple and so follow us and I look forward to meeting everyone out there and continuing this journey together.

33:34
Grace Kennedy
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Brian. It was such a pleasure to learn more about Bare meeple Farms. As I said, one of my favorite brands I've tried in the last, you know, few years being in this community and my personal favorite for anyone who wants to know is the Yuzu Citrus. But they have a bunch of delicious flavors and yeah, everyone follow them on Social and order Bare Maple. And yeah, can't wait to see where you guys go next.

33:59
Brian Bethke
Thanks.

34:01
Grace Kennedy
All right everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it was would help us out so much if you left a 5 star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the Founder feature series. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature. And if you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack. You can sign up via our website startupcpg.com.