New Beverage Showdown 23 - Semi-finals: Perfy

Speaker 1 [00:14] All right, moving right along on to our next semifinalist for this edition of the New Beverage showdown we have Vasa Martinez who is the founder and CEO of Perfy. Come on up. How are you? Yep, either one, please just keep it on your timer.

Vasa Martinez [00:31] Hey everybody, my name is Vasa Martinez and I'm the founder of Perfy. Perfy's story really starts about five years ago when a series of traumatic events happened in my life. In 2017, my mom was diagnosed. Later that year, my brother had a stroke and he's still paralyzed to this day. The following year, I lost my best friend Scott to fentanyl. The year after that, my cousin had diabetes. The year after that, my old roommate of 5 years to suicide. And then the pandemic hit, and in that same time frame, I lost another dozen friends. As a result, I gave up. I put on 100 pounds, developed pre-diabetes. I've since reversed that though. But I knew I needed to create something that could help not only me but others going through what I was going through. So I created Perfy and I named it after my mom. When I was just 2 years old, I used to grab my mom by the pocket and say, Ma, you're perfect. So I named the company after her. But what is Perfy? Perfy is a low sugar soda enhanced with nootropics and adaptogens to support a happy brain. And if you look behind me, you'll see two quotes. One, the future of beverage, soda. That's from today's agenda. The second one from Marty, who's going to step up and save soda? And to be fair, I think 2 companies already have, but they're doing it in the gut health space. No company has stepped up and saved soda in the brain health space until now. So when I created Perfy, I made it with real fruit juice, not from concentrate, and a blend of stevia, monk fruit and allulose with a pinch of sea salt to replicate that full sugar soda mouthfeel from your childhood favorites like cactus cooler, Hawaiian Punch, and S Sunkist. You might see a couple of LTOs there too. I don't think Hugh and Mike are gonna let me run with those, but. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll move on from that. One of the cool parts about Perfy is that it's ketogenic certified, so diabetics like Meg that you see in the picture said that the response to their blood sugar is like drinking water, and that's a huge thing for me. The other cool part, there's no preservatives, it's shelf stable, so we have play off shelf as well. Oh shit, I got 3 seconds. And it's caffeine-free.

Speaker 1 [02:39] Hold on. Great job, um. Alison, let's start with you. You know, uh, Vasa has shared some very moving, uh, moments of his life over the past couple of years. Um, telling that story as part of your brand is, um, somewhat challenging but also an opportunity, you know, how do you tell that story? Um, you know, what are some of the ways that you think it appears on the can in a way that resonates with consumers?

Speaker 3 [03:06] I think it's hard you have the product and the brand and he has to probably tell a story online and get it across to the consumer and then um I think that having a story that goes along with it, people emotionally can connect with it so I think that is a one up and then, um, I think you know just hearing it from him you get emotionally moved by it so I I think that it's interesting and it's tied to why he started it so it makes it a lot more impactful.

Speaker 1 [03:34] David, the future of beverages soda. I feel like that's a good thing to hear for your company, but, uh, you know, do you agree with, uh, Perfy's approach to that category? Yeah,

Speaker 4 [03:43] totally. I mean this is, this, this is definitely an emerging space, um, you know, the projections that, um, we have for this particular segment, um, with a 24% Keger growth, um, I think it's, it's, it's a really interesting segment and definitely I would agree with that

Speaker 1 [04:01] statement. Jackie, uh, we haven't talked about taste yet. How do these products taste?

Speaker 5 [04:06] Tasted great. I mean, I tried the fruit punch and it was very tasty. It was really good. Um, I also really like that, um, he uses natural fruit juice, um, and it comes through in the flavor, um, so you are definitely getting a soda experience but with less of the calories and sugar.

Speaker 1 [04:26] Vasa talks about there being sodas for gut health, but for adaptogenic nootropic benefits, um, there isn't a lot in that space. Brittany, is there an opening? Is there a white space for that?

Speaker 6 [04:35] Absolutely. This is like such an exciting time to see products like this bring in those functional benefits to beverage, right? So this had not only full flavor, um, a bold flavor with the fruit juice, but also playing up those functional benefits is a huge area of opportunity.

Speaker 1 [04:51] Outstanding, great feedback once again.