The Startup CPG Podcast

Daniel Scharff
Guys, it's a bonus episode. Okay. Today on the podcast we have Bill Hayes from Vibrant Ingredients. Finally, he explains to me the difference between an extract and an essence. He also gives us amazing insight into the world of making ingredients. They do lots of cool stuff, including cold brew, tea, natural flavors, so much more using water based extractions. I'm excited for you to learn all about it on this mini episode. All right, if you want to get in touch with the Vibrant Ingredients team, check the show notes. We've got a link for you. Enjoy. All right, Bill, my friend, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to have you and Vibrant Ingredients on here. We love people who help us put out the most important resources that we can, including the product developer database. So thank you. Vibrant Ingredients very much.

00:59
Daniel Scharff
A huge part of this whole ingredient ecosystem that we have. First, could you just tell us a little bit about Vibrant Ingredients?

01:06
Bill Hayes
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Daniel. Vibrant Ingredients is a natural ingredients provider to the food and beverage industry. Actually, we're the world's largest private equity owned natural ingredients provider. We're talking about flavors, cold brew, coffee extracts, tea essences, tea extracts, functional ingredients also includes some herbals, fruits, vegetables, and then I'd say lastly, one of our other last primary categories is performance of protection for food.

01:36
Daniel Scharff
All right, so I know one thing that I was interested to get into today is what is a tea essence? What is a tea extract? Like essences, extracts, auras. It sounds like we're talking about Gen Z slang, but we're not. We're talking about capabilities that you guys have. So first, what is a tea extract?

01:54
Bill Hayes
Yeah, tea extract. Tea essences are both extracted from tea leaves. Right? That's where they start from tea leaves and we brew them essences. If you think about it. I like to think about it this way, Daniel, or explain it this way. You're brewing your cup of tea or you've got some tea bags and a tea kettle and that wonderful aroma that first comes off when that hot water hits the tea, that's what's going to become essence. So we capture that aroma that coming off, that steam that's coming off, we capture that and condense it back down and essentially looking like water. But it's all that got the great tea fresh fruit notes.

02:30
Daniel Scharff
And what is that? Is that used just for scent when we're making a product? Or is that essence then condensed down, actually used for functionality or flavor as well?

02:39
Bill Hayes
It is used for flavor as well. So it's a concentrated form of that light volatiles that are in Tea. The extract portion could contain essence, but it is really just based on the solids part of tea. So the tea extract is what's going to make it look brown. Right. And give you the body and mouth feel to a tea beverage. It's also the astringency is going to come through in the tea extract. So tea essence, tea extract that could be sold separately or they could be often combined.

03:12
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so it sounds like extract you would need for maybe more of the bulk of product. It's going to give it that hard hitting flavor, functionality. The essence maybe could be a little bit more of the icing or how would you differentiate how they're actually used?

03:29
Bill Hayes
The essence is a little more than icing is pretty critical to bringing that fresh brewed note to tea. The extract is often going to have that fresh brew note pulled away through the processing steps on it. So the essence is what's really going to bring that fresh brewed character to the finished beverage.

03:46
Daniel Scharff
I gotcha. Which is important. I actually just went for the first time to a trade show called Coffee Festival this weekend and I walked in and the aroma, oh my gosh, that is the best smelling trade show I've ever been to. So if, yeah, if you could capture an essence like that and get it back into the product then I think you are going to be dangerous with the product. So that sounds great. Okay, so can you tell me a little bit more like who is using the extracts and the essences in products? What are they using them for exactly?

04:19
Bill Hayes
Yeah. Category wise I first think you have alcohol and non alcohol. So your hard teas out there, those would be the alcohol beverages. And so they're going to use some form of tea essence, tea extract in those and then the non elk space is you're ready to drink tea beverages and that's a big variety. Right. There are going to be some that are very tea forward and there are going to be some that are. Tea is very balanced with the rest of the flavors of the juices. And then there's some. Where tea is a supporting cast in the finished beverage, where juice or flavor be leading it or the functional ingredient might be leading it.

04:54
Daniel Scharff
I gotcha. Okay, Bill, go ahead and brag for a second. Why are Vibrance tea essences and tea extracts and maybe just your overall ingredient portfolio in your view the best thing out there ever?

05:07
Bill Hayes
Yeah, for me, Daniel, it's our extraction technology just using water to extract the teas. Right. And then we pull out that beautiful tasting essence. We're going to go ahead and concentrate down that extract and then we have the capabilities to blend them back together. So it's blending back together the essence and extract and a finished concentrate with our flavors that we also have our natural flavors, we can blend those back into a tea extract, tea concentrate for customers. Some of the functional ingredients that work well with tea. So L Theanine, egcg, some of the antioxidants used in for functional purposes. Caffeine. You want natural caffeine? We have natural caffeine that can be blended in as well. So combination of that pure water extract and extraction and then the variety of different ingredients that we can use to put together for brands.

06:00
Daniel Scharff
Okay, that makes sense to me because when I make my coffee, I like to do the pour over approach, which I think is like the simplest way to do it. And you get like the full essence of what you're actually going for. So I like the sound of that. So who does a bad job of that stuff? Like what are the companies that are making crappy flavors doing with it? If you're doing just water based extraction essences, what are the other people doing? Are they using chemicals? Like what's going on?

06:23
Bill Hayes
And you know, I think there's different ingredients solve different jobs. Right. So what kind of job are you trying to solve for? If you're in the natural space and you want a natural ingredient, then pure water is the right space for you. There are other ways to extract tea or other natural ingredients and it can be solvents, Alcohol could be used. Not that any of them are bad or wrong. Right. It's just they're solving different things that you need that essence or extract to do.

06:48
Daniel Scharff
Sometimes you might use something like alcohol. I think if you're trying to get more of a functionality out of something. I've seen that happen before. If there's like really something in there that you just absolutely have to get out of, like the leaf or whatever. Like sometimes I think alcohol can actually get that out maybe in a way that water wouldn't.

07:04
Bill Hayes
You're right. Like some of the lipids, alcohol is great at moving, removing some of the lipid based flavors and ingredients. Sometimes some other chemicals can be used. Approved solvents can be used for extraction. Right. Depending on what you're trying to get to.

07:17
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I gotcha. Okay, so for the formulators out there, for the brands out there that are using your extracts, their essences, or anybody's out there, what are some overall tips that you would have for. Here's how you can make a great product for the consumer Using these types of ingredients.

07:34
Bill Hayes
Yeah. For me it's first knowing what you're wanting deliver to the consumer. Right. Make sure you have a clear focus on what you're trying to deliver and then work with your ingredient partner. Make sure they understand that well too. So if we're going to use Essences or tea as an example, Right. Are you, do you want to have a clear tea beverage or do you want a cloudy tea beverage? Some brands believe that having some turbidity to the tea indicates naturalness. Right. Other brands, they want their tea beverage to be clear. So understanding what you want, letting your ingredient partner know what that is so they can assist in putting together the right type of ingredients. As a developer, understanding the why a brand is wanting to go with it, right.

08:20
Bill Hayes
What their mission is, what are their must haves and what are their nice to haves. Understanding what really must be focused on to deliver something is critical to being able to put together something quickly. Because everybody wants to move quickly. We want to move quickly, brands want to move quickly. So the better you can partner and truly understand where a brand is trying to go with something, then quicker we're going to be able to deliver that expectation.

08:42
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so last question for you. One, can you just remind me again the full scope of what you guys do for any brands that want to reach out, what would be appropriate and in terms of what kinds of products you work with? But then also what do you do for the brands? Like do they just order ingredients from you or you partner with them on some of the formulation parts? Give me the whole stuff.

09:02
Bill Hayes
Yeah. So back to primary. We're going to be natural flavors, cold brew, coffee extracts, tea essences and tea extracts. We're gonna have functional ingredients, natural caffeines, L theanines, EGCGs, some of the antioxidants. Then we're gonna have some herbals, some fruits, ingredients, vegetable ingredients, and lastly, probably the performance protection ingredient for the meat industry. And it's very collaborative. We prefer to be very collaborative with the brands. Right. So all the way from concept to the finished product. So that includes the creation of custom flavors, creation of, in this case, tea extracts, tea concentrate systems, the marketing piece of it, and then the commercialization. So ideally, partnering with a brand all the way through, understanding, again, like I mentioned, that concept, that mention mission where they want to go with it so we can put all those pieces together as quickly as possible.

09:55
Daniel Scharff
All right, that sounds great. So Bill, thank you so much for that explanation. I really appreciate it and I have truly learned something here today, especially about the extraction process and how you guys use water to make these lovely ingredients. I will put in the show notes for anybody who wants to get in touch with the Vibrant Ingredients team, which probably a lot of you do. After Bill listed all of those things that probably apply to a lot of you. So check that out in the show notes and thank you again, Bill and Vibrant Ingredients, our friends who helped us put together this product developer database, the first ever list of hundreds of product developers out there.

10:33
Daniel Scharff
Our goal is for brands to find the right developer who can help you get all of these great ingredients into something that really makes sense for you. So thank you really for that support. It's so hard to find that when you're an early stage brand and you just end up with the wrong person, the wrong location, a long process, who knows? And so you guys are working together with us to improve that whole process. Thank you very much.

10:57
Bill Hayes
You're welcome. Thank you, Daniel.

10:58
Daniel Scharff
All right, see you everyone. Well, my friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in cpg. As you may know, we're not just a podcast. We're a community of brands and experts. And you should join. You can sign up @startupcpg.com you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community. You're going to hear about amazing events near you, all of our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers, investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I will see you there or on our next episode. Bye bye.