June 27, 2025 • 26 mins
Clement Pappas is the CEO and a Co-Founder of Stateside Brands, the maker of Surfside Iced Tea + Vodka / Lemonade + Vodka, Stateside Vodka Sodas and Stateside Vodka. In 2015, Stateside Vodka launched as a premium, American craft vodka brand and distillery in the heart of Philadelphia, PA.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of iHeartMedia's CEOs You Should Know features Clement
poppas CEO and co founder of Stateside Brands and the
maker of Surfside, Iced t Plus Vodka, Lemonade Plus Vodka,
Stateside Vodka, Sodas, and Stateside Vodka.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So I grew up in southern New Jersey, a little
little rural town called Vineland, kind of halfway between Philly
and Atlantic City, and eventually went off to Duke University.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Great history of basketball. Tough loss for US this year,
but yeah, that's where I started.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I know Duke real Well used to live in Raleigh
for eight years, and I always tell people that while
while they play in a real hole, it is a
classic place to watch a basketball game. And I was
there during the coach k years, his final years there,
and it's a great school.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
So I'm glad we have that in common.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, listen, we're obviously here to talk about state Side,
but also all the amazing drinks that you have coming up, vodka,
sodas and teas and Surfside, and I know that's really
big too, But I think to give context everybody about
starting a company, because the origin story back in twenty
thirteen with the family is incredible. Really no experience whatsoever,
(01:10):
decided that maybe this is something we would like to do.
So can you share with our listeners and myself the
actual origin story about.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Coming up with the idea to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
So, I actually grew up in a family business, which
was a juice bottling company.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So we used to make store brand juices, like depending
on what part of the country you live.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
In, maybe it's a Safe Way or a Walmart or
a Target, and we would make the target brand Cranberry juice.
And long story there. But third generation other family members
were interested in selling the company. But I always had
a passion for the beverage business. I never really wanted
to leave. And so after we sold that company and
(01:48):
I exited at the end of twenty thirteen, I met
my now business partners, Matt and Brian Quigley, And really,
Matt just had a dream to start a business. Entrepreneurial,
very creative, and he taught himself to distill actually in
his parents' basement of all places he had he had
moved back and you know it was back in the area,
(02:11):
and uh, I guess the funny part of it. He
had all these crazy contraptions like a homemade still and
his dad came down. He hadn't been to the gym
in a while, which is kind of funny, but he
he had also been binging, breaking bad and he thought
he thought Matt was, you know, cooking up drugs in
the basement. So he summarily threw all the equipment out.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
And that's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Get the hell out of my house. What's going on here?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But yeah, you know, Matt and Brian are great entrepreneurs,
and they kind of had the idea and I had
some business experience, so we teamed up and we really
felt like we could start Stateside Vodka and really kind
of started as a as a regional brand in Philadelphia
and if we could be successful, they, uh, then we
could look to expand it. And so, you know, things
(03:03):
took a lot of twists and turns along the way,
but it's been it's been a really fun ride.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Okay, when we talk about the company, obviously there's a
lot of different products that you're very proud of with everybody,
and uh, we could go through that where people can
get them and and we'll get into the weeds one
a few things about the actual business and the competitiveness
and and differentiating yourself from the competition. But when it
comes to just the overall products, what do you offer.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, so, you know, our original flagship product is our
our state Side vodka, you know, eighty proof, you know,
really high quality, handcrafted vodka that that we make in Philadelphia.
And then you know, we got into the RTD business
and we started out with State Side Vodka soda and
uh then you know, we thought we saw an opportunity
(03:49):
for you know, a different category which which really hadn't
existed in the past, which was a vodka based version
of tea and lemonade. And so we thought that was
a little different, so we called it Surfside, kind of
a play on Stateside, but you know, obviously a more
beachy summary feeling. And so we have a line of
(04:09):
Surfside iced teas and lemonades with vodka. We have a
full line of regular iced teas, lemonades and then green
teas as well.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
As of this year, Clem, I think there's something to
be said for having experience. And you talked about the
family and the Cranberry business and the juice that you
had put together, and I'm curious from what you learned
back then to what you apply to today's business model.
And I imagine things have changed dramatically, but can you
give us a little insight on your experience back then
(04:38):
with the family and then starting this new one.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know, the good thing for me, I had the
benefit of having this family business, and you know, I
was really kind of looking at it as though I
would grow up in the business and then you know,
hopefully take it over and then pass it along to
my kids. So I mean that didn't exactly work out
the plan. But the good thing is, you know, kind
of being in that position, I worked a lot of
different parts of the company, and so you know, we
(05:03):
had a lab where we used to make up, you know,
new products and come up with new flavors.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And in the in the case of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Doing store brands, a lot of times you're, uh, copycatting
the national brands that are out there. So I had
a lot of experience in the lab, had a lot
of experience on the manufacturing side, working in the in
the factories and running the factories.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And then on the sales side, you know, selling to
a lot of the big chains, the Walmarts and targets
and and costcos of the world, and so you know,
a lot of those things are applicable to you know,
state side brands and and what we do there. We're
selling to a lot of the same customers. You know,
there's a lot on the manufacturing side that's the same.
And I think, you know, from the from the flavor
(05:45):
and formulation perspective, I actually think coming from a non
alcoholic company has given us a leg up over our
competitors that are traditionally you know, beer wine or spirits providers,
because they don't necessarily have that competency.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It's a different thing to make a mixed soft drink
type of beverage versus you know, brewing a beer. Right,
It's just a totally different process. And so you know,
we really approached our RTEs in particular, like, hey, let's
make this the best.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Version of a regular iced tea without.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Vodka in it, and then how do we just make
it taste just as good and not have all flavors
and not you know, have these fermented bitter notes and
after tastes and everything. And so I think you know
that part of it is definitely give us some differentiation
compared to our competition.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Hey Clem, if you could do something for me, because
you said something that struck me. And it's advice that
I give my daughter who's a budding filmmaker in Brooklyn
after graduating last year, and she wants to be a
DP and she's good at that, but in any movie
or TV set, you've got to work your way from
a PA and there's hundreds of jobs and what I've
told her, and you know, sometimes your kids listen, folks,
sometimes they don't. But my point is is that I
(06:54):
said do everything on the set that way. When you
get the job that you want, you'll know what everybody's
doing around you, and you'll be more centered and you'll
be clear about it and focused.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
And that's something that I'd like you to articulate.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We have a lot of young future entrepreneurs who listen
to the series, and you talked about doing a lot
of different jobs in the company. Can you kind of
expound on that of why that's a great idea before
you start running or coming up with a company.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just unbelievable experience because
you'll never know as much no matter how much people
can tell you or talk to you or communicate to you,
you're never going to know it like you will if
you walk a mile in those shoes and you actually
did the job. And you know, you don't necessarily have
to do every job for you know, ten years or anything,
(07:37):
but you know, if you know, you do the groundwork,
and depending on the industry you're in, like my industry, hey,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I tested wastewater for a while. That was my job
one summer, right. It wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Glamorous job going and collecting samples of industrial wastewater, but
you know, I learned all about that part. And then
you know, I learned about the lab and how do
we make new products? You know, you retain that knowledge.
And again, there's just no substitute for experience in a
lot of ways, right. It just you know, I could
(08:09):
tell you what it's like to be a dad, but
it's different if you are a dad, right, And that's
right kind of the same.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
The same principle applies to a lot of these areas.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You had touched on it a little bit, and I
know you've got all the different products with the vodka,
the sodas and the t's and then we're going to
talk a little bit more about surf side, how exciting
that is, especially on a national level here. But when
it comes to differentiating yourself from the competition, because without
any assumptions, I imagine it's a competitive space, how do
you differentiate yourself from the competition out there?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We were kind of really first to market.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
You know, there's been a lot of what we call
mat based products for those that aren't in the industry
that that is sort of regulated and considered a beer,
but you're you're limited and you get a lot of
advantages for that from taxes and availability in different different channels,
but you're limited to having to use a brewing beer
type of process. So there's been teas and lemonades out
(09:01):
there for years in that malt category, but there really
hadn't been one in the in the premium vodka based category.
And of course, using vodka you can get to a
lot higher quality than if you're using a malt or.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
A brewd based process.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So first of all, we were like the first one
in that, and then I think second of all, you know,
we wanted something that we would drink, and you know,
we're big iced tea drinkers in our area and lemonade drinkers,
but there really wasn't a product out there that we
wanted to drink, and some of it was flavor profile.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We felt a lot of the products out there were
overly sweetened, frankly, too many sugars.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I could have maybe handled, you know, a can of
tea that has twenty five or thirty grams of sugar
in it, maybe when I was when I was twenty
one in college, But you know, now if I do that,
I'd be in a diabetic coma. So you know, I
just couldn't go out and drink a lot of these products.
They're just too sugary, and they also have this kind
of multi taste. So you know, we really, as I
(09:59):
mentioned in flavor portion, we really worked really hard to
create the best tasting tea we could, you know, and
also have it be something that we would actually drink,
have it taste good, but also have it hit.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That calorie profile, that sugar profile.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And frankly, you know, not send us into a terrible
hangover or give us a headache the next day.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And then I think the one other thing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Not necessarily unique to iced tea, but you know, within
the beverage alcohol space, there really aren't a lot of
non carbonated options.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So having all that and then also.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Being able to deliver a non carbonated product that is
really sessionable and delicious, It's just something that really didn't
exist in a big way prior to Serf Side outstanding.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Well, if you could do this for me, I'd like
to have you explain your business plan when it comes
to putting out your product and you've got some with
the vodka that's regional, and then you've got Serf Side,
which is national. Now, maybe circumstances that dictated that, but
I'd love to hear your story along with the co
founder and your teammates about why Summer regional and you've
(11:07):
gone national and others.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Can you explain that for us?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So I think you know, if you think about we
started with full proof, you know, eighty proof bottles of vodka.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You know, huge market, highly competitive.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
If you walk into any liquor store, you know, the
vodka section will be the biggest one. There's there's hundreds
of brands out there, highly mature, highly competitive.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
But a fair amount of turnover.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And so we felt like with with our State Side
vodka brand, you know, our first mission was.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
To win locally in our in our kind of backyard.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
But you know that was a problem, that was a
business plan that we look at it as more slow
and incremental. It takes a long time to convert a
vodka drinker.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
If you talk to, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Quiz one of your friends, you know, what you like vodka,
what kind of and people you'll find are very committed
to their brand, so it takes a long.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They say, oh, i'm a I'm a Tito's man, I'm.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
A gre gousman, or you know, and they get mad
if they don't get their brand right, so it takes
some time. Now we have a product that we think
is better and it's American and it's it's handmade, but
it's it's super premium, high quality. It's got really cool
packaging if you've seen described for the audio listeners. It's
got the kind of flip top used to be really
(12:21):
associated with grow Spear. So they are great bottles. You
can reuse them as water bottles or iced tea bottles
in your house. But again, you know, that is more
of a slow process where it takes time to convert
each individual consumer. You know, when we got into Stateside
vaka Soda, that took off really really well, but at
(12:44):
that point we only had a pretty small cluster of
distribution kind of you know, let's say Philadelphia to DC,
and so, you know, we put it out pretty quickly
in a lot of those markets and it did well,
but a lot of people entered that space as that
category exploded, and we found when we started looking at
markets that were farther away, you.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Know, we were a little late to the party.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And you know, it might have been one thing if
we were already a national company, uh and we already
had built out all of our distribution network and you know,
all of our relationships with big chain stores that carried
these products throughout the country.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
But we didn't have that, and so to show up
the door to the door with a.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Brand or a product style that is already very saturated.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was going to be very difficult. And so one of
the learnings from that, you.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Though, you know, state Sidebok and state Sidebocca do extremely
well in our home market. When we had when we
found Surfside and that took off right away, we were
kind of an innovator and we were first to the category, and.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So we looked around and said, hey, we got to
go fast. We don't want to be late to the
party again. So we totally changed our business model.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
And said we got to go out and in our
business you have to use distributors. It's just legally mandated.
It's the law. I can't sell to Walmart or Target directly.
It's legally mandated in pretty much every state that I
have to sell to a distributor. So we had to
go around and sign up almost two hundred distributors across
the country to.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Cover the whole, you know, the whole footprint.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
And we had to you know, start selling into the
chain stores, which in many states the way the regulations are,
they're the big, you know, the big retailers. So we
really took a different approach. Right with the state side
and the stateside Bocknesota was like kind of like start
locally and then expand out slowly, whereas with serf side,
we said, hey, now's the opportunity. We got lightning in
(14:44):
a bottle or a can, as the case may be
in this situation, but we said we got to go
get it now.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So we feel like we're we're racing to the finish line.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
With serf side, well, can you do me a favor
and indulge me because a long time ago in my
business in radio and TV sports, when and I was
kind of humming, hang about something, my boss just told me, Hey, man,
just run a play and then we'll deal with it.
You guys were you ran a play, didn't you. I
mean you had a pivot and then you ran a
play very quickly, yep.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And you know it takes some gumption, right, you know,
you put money on the line. You you know, you
go out and your risk failure. But you know, we
felt like, hey, these kinds of opportunities don't come around
that often, and you know, a little a little bit
of luck, hopefully a lot of hard work that led
to that luck, and we made some right decisions, but
(15:34):
we really felt like, hey, we were onto a hit here,
and you know, opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, and
like you said, you got to just take that play
and run with it. And you know we'll make some
errors along the way, but we'll fix them.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And you know the worst thing we could.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Do is sit still and not capitalize on this opportunity.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Well, I think that's good advice.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
And I also think too, because I've heard a lot
in this series of co founders and leaders of companies
clem about their intuition and running that play and sometimes
you just have that feeling in business, so you just
have to take a chance. And that's kind of what
it's all about. If you could do me a favor,
I'd love a little behind the scenes, especially for your
national brand when it comes to surfside. You talked about distributors,
(16:14):
but to get into these big stores, you know, marketing
and price point, and of course you know the taste
of your product. There's so many things that go into it.
But when it comes to getting into all these chains
in different stores, what's.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
The process and what does it look like from behind
the scenes.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
For us, there's some variation obviously, but a lot of
them are pretty you know, standard playbook that they run,
and so you know, typically they start having meetings with
with suppliers and distributors, you.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Know at a Walmart or a big now you know,
pick your.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Name, Kroger, Safeway, and they'll start taking meetings late summer
early fall. They'll start looking at their current assortment and
thinking about what's working, what's not being They'll even look
between categories and say, well, you know, I used to
have so much space in this category, but it's not selling,
so I'm going to shrink that space and give it
to a growing category. So they'll take a look kind
(17:07):
of holistically at the shelf, meet with suppliers, hear what's new,
and then you typically get an answer towards the end
of the year, at the beginning of the new year,
and then they have what we call in the business
spring resets, so you know, this time of year we're
just finishing up actually resetting what's on the shelf, and
so you know, we have to go in and you know,
(17:27):
the hard part is a new supplier is you don't
have an existing relationship where you know a lot of
the companies that they're doing business with are you know,
big companies that you've heard of right Anheuser Busch and
Diageo and you know Most and Cores and you know,
big companies like this that you know already have regular
meetings and are already on the books and already have
(17:48):
lots of items and working relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You know, for us, sometimes it's hard for.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Us to even get you know, buyers to answer our
calls or return our emails or find our way to
the front door and so you know, we to you know,
hire the right people and beg, borrow and steal and
you know, find our way to get in there. And
I think, you know, eventually, we just had to build
up enough momentum, you know, with our sales data and
our track record that that the buyers, you know, started
(18:15):
to believe in a couple of them. You know, you
get a couple of them to take some chances on you,
and then you build the momentum off that, build up
your track record.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Then you bring the track record to the more skeptical
one and say, hey, look at what we did.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
You know, you guys are missing out and your competitors,
you know, getting these sales, and you know, you keep
building on it from there. But in the beginning, it
can be it can be really hard to get, you know,
from zero to one. You know that that first part
is kind of the hardest part.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, and you know the other thing, Clem, I was
just thinking that, you know, whenever you have a widget
and you're trying to sell it, you can have great packaging,
great marketing. They can either taste good or look good
or it feels good, but unless you're talking to the
right person, it's not going anywhere to your point, right, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And these buyers, you know, everybody's got a got a dream, right,
So you have to find a way to cut through
the noise because in their defense, you know, they're getting
inbound stuff constantly. Everybody wants to sell them a product,
and everybody's got an idea for a new drink, and.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know, so there's there's always you.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Know, I'm sure they get a deluge of emails and
phone calls every week and it's like, okay, great, another
another dreamer here with their you know, with their pipe dream,
and you know you've got to find a way to
break through that.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
You do, do me a favor and indulge me for
a second, because in this series, once again, we have
a lot of leaders that listen and a lot of
future entrepreneurs and people that are going to run a
company someday. And I love to talk about leadership, and
I think this is great coming from you because you're
dealing with so many people, so many distributors, so many
working parts. A lot of great communication has to come on.
(19:47):
And I'm sure it's since trial by fire just about
every day something crazy going on. But when it comes
to leadership and what you do specifically in your journey
and with your team.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Clem, what's leadership looking sound like to you?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, I think you know, starts with having the right
company culture. And I'm really proud of the culture we have.
And you know, a company is nothing without the right people.
And so you know, we really I try to.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Set a tone of a great sports team.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You know, we talked about sports a bit on this podcast,
but you know, you think about what it takes to
win a super Bowl, right, and of course I'm from Philly,
so we're we like to talk about the super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
At least this year.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
But you know, you got to have great a players
at every position, and you know, you want players that
are team players.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We have what we call note a whole policy.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I'll be politically correct for the for the podcast, but
you know, we got to have team players. They've got
to be competitive people that get results, but you know
they you know, they have to work with each other
as well.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
So you know, that's why we have that zero tolerance
policy piece of it. But I think, you know, I'm
really proud of the culture we created.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I always you know, I want it to be the
funest place anyone's ever worked, including myself, and if it's not,
we're doing something wrong. I mean, you know, we're selling vodka,
you know, vodka, tea drinks.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's it's uh, you know, if.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You're not having fun doing this, what are you having
fun doing? So we try to really keep that balance
of hey, you can come to work and be yourself
and have fun. But you know, we're also competitive and
we're trying to win championships. So you know, that's you
know that that's really the biggest thing that I focus on.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And then you know, of course from a business side.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
There's a lot of a lot of pieces to the puzzle,
but you know, the big rocks that you obviously have
to keep your eyes on.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
You know, I always have a phrase sales.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Sales cures everything, right, So you know, sales is really
important to stay close to. That's an area that I
spend a lot of time on and and of course,
you know, with with our business, we have these distributors,
so they're an important part, uh critical part of getting
sales done and so having that right relationship with the
distributor and then making sure we're doing the right job
(22:00):
on the street level as well as with the national
accounts is huge, so that that's an.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Area I spend a lot of my time on.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And you know, I think we've been really fortunate to
hire some excellent, excellent folks that have done a great job,
you know, handling our support. You know, part of the
business right so HR, supply chain, legal finance, and you know,
it's it's kind of like the chain is as strong
as its weakest link.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You may be doing a great job with sales and
marketing and everything else, but you know, if your finances
are out of whack, game over, right, And the.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Same thing with supply chain. Right, if we don't deliver product,
that's game over. So you know, those are kind of
the big rocks that I focus on.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that, and I know
it's not going to surprise you. But a common theme
in this series is culture, but also your team members
and the team that you work with, making sure there's
a good work life balance and having a great product
and having some fun.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
So I'm glad that we talked about that.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I did want to put a pin and work unless
it affects work as well too, and about philanthropic and
charity work, whether it's with a company or with your family.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
What do you like to be a part of.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, so we, you know, sort of a sad story,
but you know one that one that certainly touched our
you know, my life and my wife, Lauren's wife and
our family very deeply.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
We uh, we.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Lost our first child, you know, essentially he was born
prematurely due to a thing called help syndrome, which is
a version of a syndrome called pre aclampsia that my
wife had, which forced an emergency c section at twenty
nine weeks. And so you know, that was obviously, you know,
(23:38):
a really significant event in our lives, and we really
try to take that and say, hey, what can we
do to turn this tragedy into something positive? And so
we started we started a fund that we work with
foundation called the Preclamsya Foundation, and within that, we started
a fund called the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund, And our
(23:58):
goal is really to cure a clamcy of by the
year twenty fifty so that no one will go through
what we had to go through. And you know, a
lot of a lot of research that we fund really
trying to better understand, diagnose, and ultimately cure this disease,
and so we've made a.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Lot of progress.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
We've funded a lot of research that would not have
otherwise gotten done if we weren't out fundraising and working
with a preclamsy A Foundation to find the best researchers
and the best projects out there.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So thank you for asking something that's really important to
me and my family.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Well I could see why, Clement from a parent, I'm
sorry for your loss, but I'm always in awe of
parents and people that have such a tragedy that can
move forward and turn something that's just horrific into something
where it's helping thousands of other families and people out there.
So I commend you and your wife and your family
for doing that. Thank you for sharing something so personal
that means a lot. I didn't want to kind of
finish up with some final thoughts from you. I know
(24:57):
you've got some great things happening, not only a sustainable company,
but the growth has been incredible, especially with surf Side.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Just get some final thoughts.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
From you about all that you offer and all the
great listeners out there that maybe haven't had a chance
to sample some of your products and and and see
where things are going for the future, so serve.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
The floor is yours.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, no, thanks, listen. If you haven't tried surf Side,
please run out and try it. Like I said, we're
in you know most of the major retailers throughout the
country and you won't be disappointed. It's just, you know,
an alternative to beer. I would say, you know, it's
it's kind of the same alcohol percentage. It comes in
a can. It's easy to throw it in the cooler,
take it to the beach, take.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It on the golf course, and it's non carbonated. It
won't blow you.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And I'll tell you once you once you go surfside,
it's hard to go back.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
That's a good sales pitch and clem without embarrassing you
and your team. You've got a great website. It's actually
very beautiful. It's easy to navigate. What's the website for
everybody so they can check out all of the drinks
out there and also the history, your story and everything else.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
So you can find our surfside website at www dot
drink surfside dot com. I would highly suggest also to
look us up on Instagram at the handles at drink
Surfside and then Stateside Vodka, Sodas and Stateside Vodka you'll
find at www dot Stateside vodka dot com and again
(26:21):
on Instagram at drink Stateside Outstanding.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Hey Clym, thank you so much, continue success, give my
best to everybody at the team and we really appreciate
you joining us and featuring you on CELS.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
You should know.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Thanks, Dennis, appreciate you having me
This episode of iHeartMedia's CEOs You Should Know features Clement
poppas CEO and co founder of Stateside Brands and the
maker of Surfside, Iced t Plus Vodka, Lemonade Plus Vodka,
Stateside Vodka, Sodas, and Stateside Vodka.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So I grew up in southern New Jersey, a little
little rural town called Vineland, kind of halfway between Philly
and Atlantic City, and eventually went off to Duke University.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Great history of basketball. Tough loss for US this year,
but yeah, that's where I started.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I know Duke real Well used to live in Raleigh
for eight years, and I always tell people that while
while they play in a real hole, it is a
classic place to watch a basketball game. And I was
there during the coach k years, his final years there,
and it's a great school.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
So I'm glad we have that in common.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Well, listen, we're obviously here to talk about state Side,
but also all the amazing drinks that you have coming up, vodka,
sodas and teas and Surfside, and I know that's really
big too, But I think to give context everybody about
starting a company, because the origin story back in twenty
thirteen with the family is incredible. Really no experience whatsoever,
(01:10):
decided that maybe this is something we would like to do.
So can you share with our listeners and myself the
actual origin story about.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Coming up with the idea to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
So, I actually grew up in a family business, which
was a juice bottling company.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So we used to make store brand juices, like depending
on what part of the country you live.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
In, maybe it's a Safe Way or a Walmart or
a Target, and we would make the target brand Cranberry juice.
And long story there. But third generation other family members
were interested in selling the company. But I always had
a passion for the beverage business. I never really wanted
to leave. And so after we sold that company and
(01:48):
I exited at the end of twenty thirteen, I met
my now business partners, Matt and Brian Quigley, And really,
Matt just had a dream to start a business. Entrepreneurial,
very creative, and he taught himself to distill actually in
his parents' basement of all places he had he had
moved back and you know it was back in the area,
(02:11):
and uh, I guess the funny part of it. He
had all these crazy contraptions like a homemade still and
his dad came down. He hadn't been to the gym
in a while, which is kind of funny, but he
he had also been binging, breaking bad and he thought
he thought Matt was, you know, cooking up drugs in
the basement. So he summarily threw all the equipment out.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
And that's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Get the hell out of my house. What's going on here?
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But yeah, you know, Matt and Brian are great entrepreneurs,
and they kind of had the idea and I had
some business experience, so we teamed up and we really
felt like we could start Stateside Vodka and really kind
of started as a as a regional brand in Philadelphia
and if we could be successful, they, uh, then we
could look to expand it. And so, you know, things
(03:03):
took a lot of twists and turns along the way,
but it's been it's been a really fun ride.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Okay, when we talk about the company, obviously there's a
lot of different products that you're very proud of with everybody,
and uh, we could go through that where people can
get them and and we'll get into the weeds one
a few things about the actual business and the competitiveness
and and differentiating yourself from the competition. But when it
comes to just the overall products, what do you offer.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, so, you know, our original flagship product is our
our state Side vodka, you know, eighty proof, you know,
really high quality, handcrafted vodka that that we make in Philadelphia.
And then you know, we got into the RTD business
and we started out with State Side Vodka soda and
uh then you know, we thought we saw an opportunity
(03:49):
for you know, a different category which which really hadn't
existed in the past, which was a vodka based version
of tea and lemonade. And so we thought that was
a little different, so we called it Surfside, kind of
a play on Stateside, but you know, obviously a more
beachy summary feeling. And so we have a line of
(04:09):
Surfside iced teas and lemonades with vodka. We have a
full line of regular iced teas, lemonades and then green
teas as well.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
As of this year, Clem, I think there's something to
be said for having experience. And you talked about the
family and the Cranberry business and the juice that you
had put together, and I'm curious from what you learned
back then to what you apply to today's business model.
And I imagine things have changed dramatically, but can you
give us a little insight on your experience back then
(04:38):
with the family and then starting this new one.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You know, the good thing for me, I had the
benefit of having this family business, and you know, I
was really kind of looking at it as though I
would grow up in the business and then you know,
hopefully take it over and then pass it along to
my kids. So I mean that didn't exactly work out
the plan. But the good thing is, you know, kind
of being in that position, I worked a lot of
different parts of the company, and so you know, we
(05:03):
had a lab where we used to make up, you know,
new products and come up with new flavors.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And in the in the case of.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Doing store brands, a lot of times you're, uh, copycatting
the national brands that are out there. So I had
a lot of experience in the lab, had a lot
of experience on the manufacturing side, working in the in
the factories and running the factories.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And then on the sales side, you know, selling to
a lot of the big chains, the Walmarts and targets
and and costcos of the world, and so you know,
a lot of those things are applicable to you know,
state side brands and and what we do there. We're
selling to a lot of the same customers. You know,
there's a lot on the manufacturing side that's the same.
And I think, you know, from the from the flavor
(05:45):
and formulation perspective, I actually think coming from a non
alcoholic company has given us a leg up over our
competitors that are traditionally you know, beer wine or spirits providers,
because they don't necessarily have that competency.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It's a different thing to make a mixed soft drink
type of beverage versus you know, brewing a beer. Right,
It's just a totally different process. And so you know,
we really approached our RTEs in particular, like, hey, let's
make this the best.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Version of a regular iced tea without.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Vodka in it, and then how do we just make
it taste just as good and not have all flavors
and not you know, have these fermented bitter notes and
after tastes and everything. And so I think you know
that part of it is definitely give us some differentiation
compared to our competition.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Hey Clem, if you could do something for me, because
you said something that struck me. And it's advice that
I give my daughter who's a budding filmmaker in Brooklyn
after graduating last year, and she wants to be a
DP and she's good at that, but in any movie
or TV set, you've got to work your way from
a PA and there's hundreds of jobs and what I've
told her, and you know, sometimes your kids listen, folks,
sometimes they don't. But my point is is that I
(06:54):
said do everything on the set that way. When you
get the job that you want, you'll know what everybody's
doing around you, and you'll be more centered and you'll
be clear about it and focused.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
And that's something that I'd like you to articulate.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
We have a lot of young future entrepreneurs who listen
to the series, and you talked about doing a lot
of different jobs in the company. Can you kind of
expound on that of why that's a great idea before
you start running or coming up with a company.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just unbelievable experience because
you'll never know as much no matter how much people
can tell you or talk to you or communicate to you,
you're never going to know it like you will if
you walk a mile in those shoes and you actually
did the job. And you know, you don't necessarily have
to do every job for you know, ten years or anything,
(07:37):
but you know, if you know, you do the groundwork,
and depending on the industry you're in, like my industry, hey,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I tested wastewater for a while. That was my job
one summer, right. It wasn't a.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Glamorous job going and collecting samples of industrial wastewater, but
you know, I learned all about that part. And then
you know, I learned about the lab and how do
we make new products? You know, you retain that knowledge.
And again, there's just no substitute for experience in a
lot of ways, right. It just you know, I could
(08:09):
tell you what it's like to be a dad, but
it's different if you are a dad, right, And that's
right kind of the same.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
The same principle applies to a lot of these areas.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Well.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
You had touched on it a little bit, and I
know you've got all the different products with the vodka,
the sodas and the t's and then we're going to
talk a little bit more about surf side, how exciting
that is, especially on a national level here. But when
it comes to differentiating yourself from the competition, because without
any assumptions, I imagine it's a competitive space, how do
you differentiate yourself from the competition out there?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We were kind of really first to market.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
You know, there's been a lot of what we call
mat based products for those that aren't in the industry
that that is sort of regulated and considered a beer,
but you're you're limited and you get a lot of
advantages for that from taxes and availability in different different channels,
but you're limited to having to use a brewing beer
type of process. So there's been teas and lemonades out
(09:01):
there for years in that malt category, but there really
hadn't been one in the in the premium vodka based category.
And of course, using vodka you can get to a
lot higher quality than if you're using a malt or.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
A brewd based process.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So first of all, we were like the first one
in that, and then I think second of all, you know,
we wanted something that we would drink, and you know,
we're big iced tea drinkers in our area and lemonade drinkers,
but there really wasn't a product out there that we
wanted to drink, and some of it was flavor profile.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We felt a lot of the products out there were
overly sweetened, frankly, too many sugars.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I could have maybe handled, you know, a can of
tea that has twenty five or thirty grams of sugar
in it, maybe when I was when I was twenty
one in college, But you know, now if I do that,
I'd be in a diabetic coma. So you know, I
just couldn't go out and drink a lot of these products.
They're just too sugary, and they also have this kind
of multi taste. So you know, we really, as I
(09:59):
mentioned in flavor portion, we really worked really hard to
create the best tasting tea we could, you know, and
also have it be something that we would actually drink,
have it taste good, but also have it hit.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That calorie profile, that sugar profile.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And frankly, you know, not send us into a terrible
hangover or give us a headache the next day.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
And then I think the one other thing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Not necessarily unique to iced tea, but you know, within
the beverage alcohol space, there really aren't a lot of
non carbonated options.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So having all that and then also.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Being able to deliver a non carbonated product that is
really sessionable and delicious, It's just something that really didn't
exist in a big way prior to Serf Side outstanding.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Well, if you could do this for me, I'd like
to have you explain your business plan when it comes
to putting out your product and you've got some with
the vodka that's regional, and then you've got Serf Side,
which is national. Now, maybe circumstances that dictated that, but
I'd love to hear your story along with the co
founder and your teammates about why Summer regional and you've
(11:07):
gone national and others.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Can you explain that for us?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So I think you know, if you think about we
started with full proof, you know, eighty proof bottles of vodka.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You know, huge market, highly competitive.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
If you walk into any liquor store, you know, the
vodka section will be the biggest one. There's there's hundreds
of brands out there, highly mature, highly competitive.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
But a fair amount of turnover.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And so we felt like with with our State Side
vodka brand, you know, our first mission was.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
To win locally in our in our kind of backyard.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
But you know that was a problem, that was a
business plan that we look at it as more slow
and incremental. It takes a long time to convert a
vodka drinker.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
If you talk to, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Quiz one of your friends, you know, what you like vodka,
what kind of and people you'll find are very committed
to their brand, so it takes a long.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
They say, oh, i'm a I'm a Tito's man, I'm.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
A gre gousman, or you know, and they get mad
if they don't get their brand right, so it takes
some time. Now we have a product that we think
is better and it's American and it's it's handmade, but
it's it's super premium, high quality. It's got really cool
packaging if you've seen described for the audio listeners. It's
got the kind of flip top used to be really
(12:21):
associated with grow Spear. So they are great bottles. You
can reuse them as water bottles or iced tea bottles
in your house. But again, you know, that is more
of a slow process where it takes time to convert
each individual consumer. You know, when we got into Stateside
vaka Soda, that took off really really well, but at
(12:44):
that point we only had a pretty small cluster of
distribution kind of you know, let's say Philadelphia to DC,
and so, you know, we put it out pretty quickly
in a lot of those markets and it did well,
but a lot of people entered that space as that
category exploded, and we found when we started looking at
markets that were farther away, you.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Know, we were a little late to the party.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
And you know, it might have been one thing if
we were already a national company, uh and we already
had built out all of our distribution network and you know,
all of our relationships with big chain stores that carried
these products throughout the country.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
But we didn't have that, and so to show up
the door to the door with a.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Brand or a product style that is already very saturated.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was going to be very difficult. And so one of
the learnings from that, you.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Though, you know, state Sidebok and state Sidebocca do extremely
well in our home market. When we had when we
found Surfside and that took off right away, we were
kind of an innovator and we were first to the category, and.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So we looked around and said, hey, we got to
go fast. We don't want to be late to the
party again. So we totally changed our business model.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
And said we got to go out and in our
business you have to use distributors. It's just legally mandated.
It's the law. I can't sell to Walmart or Target directly.
It's legally mandated in pretty much every state that I
have to sell to a distributor. So we had to
go around and sign up almost two hundred distributors across
the country to.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Cover the whole, you know, the whole footprint.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
And we had to you know, start selling into the
chain stores, which in many states the way the regulations are,
they're the big, you know, the big retailers. So we
really took a different approach. Right with the state side
and the stateside Bocknesota was like kind of like start
locally and then expand out slowly, whereas with serf side,
we said, hey, now's the opportunity. We got lightning in
(14:44):
a bottle or a can, as the case may be
in this situation, but we said we got to go
get it now.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So we feel like we're we're racing to the finish line.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
With serf side, well, can you do me a favor
and indulge me because a long time ago in my
business in radio and TV sports, when and I was
kind of humming, hang about something, my boss just told me, Hey, man,
just run a play and then we'll deal with it.
You guys were you ran a play, didn't you. I
mean you had a pivot and then you ran a
play very quickly, yep.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And you know it takes some gumption, right, you know,
you put money on the line. You you know, you
go out and your risk failure. But you know, we
felt like, hey, these kinds of opportunities don't come around
that often, and you know, a little a little bit
of luck, hopefully a lot of hard work that led
to that luck, and we made some right decisions, but
(15:34):
we really felt like, hey, we were onto a hit here,
and you know, opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, and
like you said, you got to just take that play
and run with it. And you know we'll make some
errors along the way, but we'll fix them.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And you know the worst thing we could.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Do is sit still and not capitalize on this opportunity.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
Well, I think that's good advice.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
And I also think too, because I've heard a lot
in this series of co founders and leaders of companies
clem about their intuition and running that play and sometimes
you just have that feeling in business, so you just
have to take a chance. And that's kind of what
it's all about. If you could do me a favor,
I'd love a little behind the scenes, especially for your
national brand when it comes to surfside. You talked about distributors,
(16:14):
but to get into these big stores, you know, marketing
and price point, and of course you know the taste
of your product. There's so many things that go into it.
But when it comes to getting into all these chains
in different stores, what's.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
The process and what does it look like from behind
the scenes.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
For us, there's some variation obviously, but a lot of
them are pretty you know, standard playbook that they run,
and so you know, typically they start having meetings with
with suppliers and distributors, you.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Know at a Walmart or a big now you know,
pick your.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Name, Kroger, Safeway, and they'll start taking meetings late summer
early fall. They'll start looking at their current assortment and
thinking about what's working, what's not being They'll even look
between categories and say, well, you know, I used to
have so much space in this category, but it's not selling,
so I'm going to shrink that space and give it
to a growing category. So they'll take a look kind
(17:07):
of holistically at the shelf, meet with suppliers, hear what's new,
and then you typically get an answer towards the end
of the year, at the beginning of the new year,
and then they have what we call in the business
spring resets, so you know, this time of year we're
just finishing up actually resetting what's on the shelf, and
so you know, we have to go in and you know,
(17:27):
the hard part is a new supplier is you don't
have an existing relationship where you know a lot of
the companies that they're doing business with are you know,
big companies that you've heard of right Anheuser Busch and
Diageo and you know Most and Cores and you know,
big companies like this that you know already have regular
meetings and are already on the books and already have
(17:48):
lots of items and working relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
You know, for us, sometimes it's hard for.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Us to even get you know, buyers to answer our
calls or return our emails or find our way to
the front door and so you know, we to you know,
hire the right people and beg, borrow and steal and
you know, find our way to get in there. And
I think, you know, eventually, we just had to build
up enough momentum, you know, with our sales data and
our track record that that the buyers, you know, started
(18:15):
to believe in a couple of them. You know, you
get a couple of them to take some chances on you,
and then you build the momentum off that, build up
your track record.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Then you bring the track record to the more skeptical
one and say, hey, look at what we did.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
You know, you guys are missing out and your competitors,
you know, getting these sales, and you know, you keep
building on it from there. But in the beginning, it
can be it can be really hard to get, you know,
from zero to one. You know that that first part
is kind of the hardest part.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Yeah, and you know the other thing, Clem, I was
just thinking that, you know, whenever you have a widget
and you're trying to sell it, you can have great packaging,
great marketing. They can either taste good or look good
or it feels good, but unless you're talking to the
right person, it's not going anywhere to your point, right, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And these buyers, you know, everybody's got a got a dream, right,
So you have to find a way to cut through
the noise because in their defense, you know, they're getting
inbound stuff constantly. Everybody wants to sell them a product,
and everybody's got an idea for a new drink, and.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
You know, so there's there's always you.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Know, I'm sure they get a deluge of emails and
phone calls every week and it's like, okay, great, another
another dreamer here with their you know, with their pipe dream,
and you know you've got to find a way to
break through that.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
You do, do me a favor and indulge me for
a second, because in this series, once again, we have
a lot of leaders that listen and a lot of
future entrepreneurs and people that are going to run a
company someday. And I love to talk about leadership, and
I think this is great coming from you because you're
dealing with so many people, so many distributors, so many
working parts. A lot of great communication has to come on.
(19:47):
And I'm sure it's since trial by fire just about
every day something crazy going on. But when it comes
to leadership and what you do specifically in your journey
and with your team.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
Clem, what's leadership looking sound like to you?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, I think you know, starts with having the right
company culture. And I'm really proud of the culture we have.
And you know, a company is nothing without the right people.
And so you know, we really I try to.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Set a tone of a great sports team.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You know, we talked about sports a bit on this podcast,
but you know, you think about what it takes to
win a super Bowl, right, and of course I'm from Philly,
so we're we like to talk about the super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
At least this year.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
But you know, you got to have great a players
at every position, and you know, you want players that
are team players.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We have what we call note a whole policy.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I'll be politically correct for the for the podcast, but
you know, we got to have team players. They've got
to be competitive people that get results, but you know
they you know, they have to work with each other
as well.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
So you know, that's why we have that zero tolerance
policy piece of it. But I think, you know, I'm
really proud of the culture we created.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I always you know, I want it to be the
funest place anyone's ever worked, including myself, and if it's not,
we're doing something wrong. I mean, you know, we're selling vodka,
you know, vodka, tea drinks.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's it's uh, you know, if.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You're not having fun doing this, what are you having
fun doing? So we try to really keep that balance
of hey, you can come to work and be yourself
and have fun. But you know, we're also competitive and
we're trying to win championships. So you know, that's you
know that that's really the biggest thing that I focus on.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And then you know, of course from a business side.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
There's a lot of a lot of pieces to the puzzle,
but you know, the big rocks that you obviously have
to keep your eyes on.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
You know, I always have a phrase sales.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Sales cures everything, right, So you know, sales is really
important to stay close to. That's an area that I
spend a lot of time on and and of course,
you know, with with our business, we have these distributors,
so they're an important part, uh critical part of getting
sales done and so having that right relationship with the
distributor and then making sure we're doing the right job
(22:00):
on the street level as well as with the national
accounts is huge, so that that's an.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Area I spend a lot of my time on.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And you know, I think we've been really fortunate to
hire some excellent, excellent folks that have done a great job,
you know, handling our support. You know, part of the
business right so HR, supply chain, legal finance, and you know,
it's it's kind of like the chain is as strong
as its weakest link.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You may be doing a great job with sales and
marketing and everything else, but you know, if your finances
are out of whack, game over, right, And the.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Same thing with supply chain. Right, if we don't deliver product,
that's game over. So you know, those are kind of
the big rocks that I focus on.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that, and I know
it's not going to surprise you. But a common theme
in this series is culture, but also your team members
and the team that you work with, making sure there's
a good work life balance and having a great product
and having some fun.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
So I'm glad that we talked about that.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I did want to put a pin and work unless
it affects work as well too, and about philanthropic and
charity work, whether it's with a company or with your family.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
What do you like to be a part of.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, so we, you know, sort of a sad story,
but you know one that one that certainly touched our
you know, my life and my wife, Lauren's wife and
our family very deeply.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
We uh, we.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Lost our first child, you know, essentially he was born
prematurely due to a thing called help syndrome, which is
a version of a syndrome called pre aclampsia that my
wife had, which forced an emergency c section at twenty
nine weeks. And so you know, that was obviously, you know,
(23:38):
a really significant event in our lives, and we really
try to take that and say, hey, what can we
do to turn this tragedy into something positive? And so
we started we started a fund that we work with
foundation called the Preclamsya Foundation, and within that, we started
a fund called the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund, And our
(23:58):
goal is really to cure a clamcy of by the
year twenty fifty so that no one will go through
what we had to go through. And you know, a
lot of a lot of research that we fund really
trying to better understand, diagnose, and ultimately cure this disease,
and so we've made a.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Lot of progress.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
We've funded a lot of research that would not have
otherwise gotten done if we weren't out fundraising and working
with a preclamsy A Foundation to find the best researchers
and the best projects out there.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So thank you for asking something that's really important to
me and my family.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Well I could see why, Clement from a parent, I'm
sorry for your loss, but I'm always in awe of
parents and people that have such a tragedy that can
move forward and turn something that's just horrific into something
where it's helping thousands of other families and people out there.
So I commend you and your wife and your family
for doing that. Thank you for sharing something so personal
that means a lot. I didn't want to kind of
finish up with some final thoughts from you. I know
(24:57):
you've got some great things happening, not only a sustainable company,
but the growth has been incredible, especially with surf Side.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Just get some final thoughts.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
From you about all that you offer and all the
great listeners out there that maybe haven't had a chance
to sample some of your products and and and see
where things are going for the future, so serve.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
The floor is yours.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, no, thanks, listen. If you haven't tried surf Side,
please run out and try it. Like I said, we're
in you know most of the major retailers throughout the
country and you won't be disappointed. It's just, you know,
an alternative to beer. I would say, you know, it's
it's kind of the same alcohol percentage. It comes in
a can. It's easy to throw it in the cooler,
take it to the beach, take.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It on the golf course, and it's non carbonated. It
won't blow you.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And I'll tell you once you once you go surfside,
it's hard to go back.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
That's a good sales pitch and clem without embarrassing you
and your team. You've got a great website. It's actually
very beautiful. It's easy to navigate. What's the website for
everybody so they can check out all of the drinks
out there and also the history, your story and everything else.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
So you can find our surfside website at www dot
drink surfside dot com. I would highly suggest also to
look us up on Instagram at the handles at drink
Surfside and then Stateside Vodka, Sodas and Stateside Vodka you'll
find at www dot Stateside vodka dot com and again
(26:21):
on Instagram at drink Stateside Outstanding.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Hey Clym, thank you so much, continue success, give my
best to everybody at the team and we really appreciate
you joining us and featuring you on CELS.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
You should know.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Thanks, Dennis, appreciate you having me
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