Weekly Pickups: Espresso soda and extreme sour fruit
+ our interview with OLIPOP's co-founder and CEO, Ben Goodwin
Hello hello!
We’re gearing up for a very exciting Expo West (AKA, the Super Bowl of snacks), starting this upcoming week!
We’ll be walking the show and capturing content as always, but we’re especially excited be partnering with The Angel Group to do our very first live podcasting at their booth, Hall A, Booth #874!
If you’re attending, definitely stop by and say hi—maybe we’ll even interview you :) And if you’re not attending the show, let us know: who should we talk to? What do you want to know about Expo and the brands that attend this major trade show?
We’ll be doing our best to bring the Expo vibes to you, so if you aren’t yet following our instagram, make sure to do so before the show (and help us hit 40K)!
Now, let’s get into our pickups of the week →
Nate’s Pickup:
Esspo - Carbonated Espresso Soda
I actually tried this almost a month ago, but the brand hadn’t launched yet—so I’ve been sitting on this one….but Esspo is officially live and it’s time to share my thoughts!! The energy drink space is getting crowded (for good reason), but canned coffee has been due for a refresh for a while. We’ve got some great ones out there—Sport Coffee and Laurel’s we both highly recommended—but a sparkling, fruit-forward coffee drink?! That’s genuinely new.
Quick Facts: Carbonated espresso sodas in a 12 oz. can. Each can packs 120mg of caffeine (roughly a cup and a half of coffee), 240mg of L-Theanine, ~45 calories, and 7g of sugar. No dairy. Three flavors: Sweet Lemon, Classic Vanilla, and Cherry Vanilla. Co-founded by Refinery29 creators Philippe Von Borries and Justin Stefano, alongside COO Katharine Leitch.
Reasons to love:
The 3pm problem, solved. I adore caffeine—like, too much, I have an issue. But the afternoon slump is tricky. I don’t always want a full coffee, and something about energy drinks just doesn’t hit right at that hour. I think they tend to learn too sweet. I feel like Esspo scratches the exact itch for me. The fruit + coffee combo feels almost cocktail-like, the caffeine is just enough to carry me through the rest of the day, and it doesn’t feel like I’m chugging a can of rocket fuel.
Familiar enough to try, interesting enough to talk about. Look, I love a funky, weird, niche product—but I also know that’s not everyone. Most people want something that feels slightly novel, but mostly familiar. Esspo lives perfectly in that sweet spot. Espresso tonics aren’t new by any means, but for a lot of consumers, this will genuinely be their first time in that world—and the way Esspo presents it doesn’t make them feel like they’re taking some kind of crazy leap. I mean it’s coffee, it’s sparkling, and got some fruit and regular flavor. Doesn’t feel too alienating.
God, do I love a sparkling bevvie. I’m kind of a sparkling-only beverage person. I think it makes a drink so much more fun. So this being a tonic makes me so so happy. And to those who don’t like sparkling beverages…..who are you?!
Where to buy: Online
Jenna’s Pickup:
Final Boss Sour - Souranges
I feel like I’m cosplaying as Nate with this pick. Though I have a rampant sweet tooth, of the two of us, Nate is the candy fiend here. But I know great candy when I taste it, and this new candy is an absolute winner in my book.
This is very much a “don’t judge a book by its cover” moment for me. Final Boss Sour—a new candy brand that just launched nationwide in Walmart—is definitely not targeting a 27-year-old gal. It’s got loud, video game themed branding, a heavily bro-y social media presence, and an ecommerce site with content teetering on the edge of brain rot (see: filtering feature marked by a progressively suffering Nicolas Cage).
BUT, and I cannot stress this but enough, this is a great, innovative, delicious product. I’m so sorry to put you on something that will make you look like a teenage boy in public, but it’s worth it for the goods inside.
Quick Facts: Real dried fruit with a sour candy coating. I loved every SKU I’ve tried, but the Souranges—dried mandarin oranges—really stuck out to me.
Reasons to love:
Not simply dried fruit, not full-on candy. If you’ve ever had the dried mandarin oranges from Trader Joe’s, you know that they are a top tier dried fruit. Mandarins somehow seem to stay a little juicy upon being dried. Their flavor brightens. They become this incredibly satisfying bite that I didn’t think could get better… until Final Boss Sour got its hands on them. The addition of a sweet + (very) sour powder transforms the already superior dried fruit into a full-on sour candy, while still celebrating the fruit underneath it. I do think this is the future of candy: honoring the ~gifts of mother nature~ while adding a hit of flavor-enhancing, sugary fun.
Really, truly, sour. Final Boss Sour gamifies its sourness with “levels” from 1 (less sour) to 4 (sourest of all), and the Souranges hit the 4 mark—and deliver. I’m a sour lover, and these really do make me pucker in the best of ways.
A full-on sensory experience. According to the product copy, this sour is so intense it’ll “reprogram your mouth,” and in all honesty… it kinda did. The aggressive sourness confused my tastebuds so much, a post-Sourange sip of water tasted like lemonade. I found myself googling “can sour make water taste sweet?” Evidently, yes it can, and our friend Gemini can explain better than I:
Where to buy: Online or in-stores at Walmart!
We put out not one, but two episodes of The Curious Consumer this week! We kicked off the week with the launch of the first episode in our new series: Brand’s Biggest Fan, starting with none other than OLIPOP.
The premise: We sit down with a self-proclaimed “biggest fan” of some of our favorite buzzy CPG brands—not influencers or famous ambassadors, just regular people who happen to be a little obsessed with a brand.
Then, we go back to the founders of these brands to learn how this fandom aligns with—or departs from—the story they’ve told themselves about their own brand's success.
There are countless fantastic learnings and insights in this episode—from how Ben thinks about nostalgia when formulating OLIPOP, to soda’s wild history, to how OLIPOP reaches a mass audience of soda lovers + health freaks alike, and so much more.
We also shared a new ep of our weekly podcast, recapping the CPG and retail news of the week. In this episode, we also interviewed Jenna Goldring, co-founder of The High Confectionary, to talk about navigating the complex world of hemp-derived THC—it was a fascinating convo!
Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co