July 18, 2025 • 27 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. Under Clement’s leadership, Stateside Vodka was ranked the top-selling Pennsylvania Distilled Spirit in 2018. The company then launched its first ready-to-drink canned cocktail brand in 2021, Stateside Vodka Sodas, and experienced immediate success in the Philadelphia metro area. Following this success, Clement and co-founders Zach Pappas, Matt Quigley and Bryan Quigley identified an opportunity to create a flavorful, high-quality, vodka-based hard tea with 100 calories or less. This led to the launch of Surfside Iced Tea + Vodka in late 2022 and the brand took off like a rocket ship from the very beginning. In just two years, Surfside has become the #1 fastest growing brand across all alcohol beverages at scanned retail and has expanded its distribution nationwide across all 50 states and internationally to the Bahamas, Grand Cayman and St. Thomas. The brand was named VinePair’s “2024 Rising Drinks Brand of the Year” and earned a “2024 Hot Brands” award by Shanken IMPACT, recognized for the #1 growth spirits brand sales performance worldwide from 2022-2024. Before the start of Stateside Brands, Clement was CEO of Clement Pappas & Co., a leading national supplier of private brand juices. The company was founded in 1942 by his grandfather Clement, a hardworking U.S. immigrant who exemplified the American Dream. Growing up, the business played a central part in Clement's life, and he later worked in an executive capacity for the company for 15 years. Clement led the sale of the business to Lassonde Industries in 2011 and served as CEO until his exit in 2014. Before Clement Pappas & Co. he worked for Arthur Andersen Business Consulting in New York. Clement was also honored as Ernst & Young’s 2023 Regional Entrepreneur of the Year for his leadership with Stateside Brands.
Clement and his wife Lauren reside in Haddonfield, NJ with their two sons, Paul and Joseph. After tragically losing their premature son Peter in 2015, Clement and Lauren founded the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund with a mission to cure preeclampsia by 2050. Clement is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, and has served on numerous charitable and corporate boards. He earned his BSE from Duke University cum laude and MBA from The Wharton School, where he was designated a Palmer Scholar. *Source: Nielsen IQ Total US xAOC + Liquor Open State for Beer, Wine and Spirits L52 weeks ending 12/28/2024, brands with minimum 100,000 cases sold a year ago in 2023 **Source: Impact Databank
Clement and his wife Lauren reside in Haddonfield, NJ with their two sons, Paul and Joseph. After tragically losing their premature son Peter in 2015, Clement and Lauren founded the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund with a mission to cure preeclampsia by 2050. Clement is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, and has served on numerous charitable and corporate boards. He earned his BSE from Duke University cum laude and MBA from The Wharton School, where he was designated a Palmer Scholar. *Source: Nielsen IQ Total US xAOC + Liquor Open State for Beer, Wine and Spirits L52 weeks ending 12/28/2024, brands with minimum 100,000 cases sold a year ago in 2023 **Source: Impact Databank
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank prison CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
How by I heard.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Let's meet Clem Poppas.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the co founder and CEO for Stateside Brands,
which includes Vonka and Sodas regionally and SURFSI that is
available throughout the United States. Before we talk more about
Clem's story and his incredible brands, I first asked him
to talk a little bit about himself, where he's from
and his origin story.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yes, 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 1 (00:34):
Great history of basketball. Tough loss for US this year,
but yeah, that's that's where I started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I know Duke Griell 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. So I'm glad we have
that in common. Well, listen, we're obviously here to talk
about state Side, but also all the amazing drinks that
(01:05):
you have coming up. Vodka sodas and teas and surf side,
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 a family is incredible.
Really no experience whatsoever, 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 coming
(01:27):
up with the idea to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So I actually grew up in a family business, which
was a juice bottling company.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So we used to make store brand juices, like depending
on what part of the country you live in, maybe.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
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 I exited
(01:59):
it 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 and very 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,
(02:21):
and I guess the funny part of it, he had
all these crazy contraptions, like a homemade still, and his
dad came down.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
He hadn't been to the gym.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
In a while, which is kind of funny, but he
had also been binging, breaking bad and he thought he
thought Matt was, you know, cooking up drugs in the basement.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So he summarily threw all the equipment out. And it's
fantastic that came from work. Get the hell out of
my house. What's going on here?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
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 State Side Vodka and really
kind of started as a as a regional brand in
Philadelphia and if we could be successful there, uh, then
we could look to expand it. And so, you know,
(03:13):
things took a lot of twists and turns along the way,
but it's been it's been a really fun ride.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Okay, when we talk about the company, obviously there's a
lot of different products that you're very proud of with everybody,
and we could go through that where people can get them,
and and we'll get into the weeds on 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 4 (03:37):
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
(04:00):
were you know, a different category 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 State Side, but you know, obviously a more
beachy summary feeling. And so we have a line of
surf Side iced teas and lemonades with vodka. We have
(04:23):
a full line of regular iced teas, lemonades and then
green teas as well.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
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
(04:48):
with the family and then starting this new one.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, 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 take it over and then pass it along
to my kids.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So I mean, that didn't exactly work out to plan.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
But the good thing is, you know, kind of being
in that position, I worked in a lot of different
parts of the company, and so you know, we had
a lab where we used to make up, you know,
new products and come up with new flavors. And in
the in the case of doing store brands, a lot
of times you're uh, copycatting the national.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Brands that are out there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
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 (05:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And then on the sales.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You know, there's a lot on the manufacturing side that's
the same.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
And I think you know, from the from the flavor
and formulation perspective, I actually think coming from a non
alcohol 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 1 (06:10):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Best version of a regular iced tea.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Without 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 3 (06:42):
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 on 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
(07:05):
said do everything on the set that way.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
When you get the job that you want, you'll know what.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Everybody's doing around you, and you'll be more centered and
you'll be clear about it and focused. And that's something
that I'd like you to articulate. 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 4 (07:27):
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 the mile on those shoes and you actually
did the job. And you don't necessarily have to do
every job for you know, ten years or anything. But
(07:49):
you know, if you know, you do the groundwork, and
depending on the industry you're in, like my industry, Hey,
I mean I tested waste water for a while. That
was my job one summer.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
It wasn't a 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, and 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,
(08:19):
I could 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. The same principle applies
to a lot of these areas well.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You had touched on it a little bit, and I
know you've got all the different products with the vodka,
the SODA's, and the teas, 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 4 (08:47):
We were kind of really first to market. You know,
there's been a lot of what we call malt 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
(09:08):
of process. So there's been teas and lemonades out 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.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You're using a malt or a brew based process.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And some of it was flavor profile.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We felt a lot of the products out there were
overly sweetened, frankly, too many sugars. 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
(10:03):
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 mentioned in the 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 that calorie profile, that sugar profile,
(10:27):
and frankly, you know, not send us into a terrible
hangover or give us a headache the next day. And
then I think the one other thing not necessarily unique
to iced tea, but you know, within the beverage alcohol space,
there really aren't a lot of non carbonated options. So
having all that and then also being able to deliver
a non carbonated product that is really sessionable and delicious,
(10:51):
it's just something that really didn't exist in a big
way prior to serve side outstanding.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, if you could do this for me, I'd like
to have you explain your business plan and when it
comes to putting out your product, and you've got some
with the vodka that's regional, and then you've got surfside,
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 some are regional and
(11:17):
you've gone national on others.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Can you explain that for us?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So, I think you know, if you think about we
started with full proof, you know, eighty proof bottles of vodka.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You know, huge market, highly competitive.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
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, but a
fair amount of turnover. And so we felt like with
with our State Side vodka brand, you know, our first
mission was to win locally in our in our kind
of backyard. But you know that was a that was
(11:52):
a business plan that we look at it as more
slow and incremental. It takes a long time to convert
a vodka drinker. If you talk to, you know, quiz
one of your friends, you know, what did you like vodka?
What kind of And people you'll find are very committed
to their brand, so it takes a long They say, oh,
I'm a I'm a Tito's man, or I'm a Grey
Goos man or you know, and they get mad if
(12:13):
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 associated with
grow Spear.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So they're great bottles.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
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 Vodka soda, that took off really, really well, but
at that point we only had a pretty small cluster
(12:58):
of distribution kind of you know, let's say Philadelphia to
d C. 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 know, we
were a little late to the party. And you know,
(13:21):
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 1 (13:34):
But we didn't have that, and so to show up
the door to the door with a.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Brand or a product style that is already very saturated.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Was going to be very difficult. And so one of
the learnings from that.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Even though you know, state Sideboka and state Sideboca 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 so.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
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.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Model and said, hey, we got to go out and
in our business you have to use distributors.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's just legally mandated. It's the law.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
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 cover the whole, you know, the whole footprint. And
we had to you know, start selling into the chain stores,
which in many states the way the regulations are, they're
(14:39):
the big you know, the big retailers.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So we really took a different approach.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Right with the state side and the state side Backusota
was like kind of like start locally and then expand
out slowly, whereas with Serfside, we said, hey, now's the opportunity.
We got lightning in a bottle or a can as
the case may be in this situation, but we said
we got to go get it now. So we feel
like we're we're racing to the finish line with with surfside.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, can you do me a favor and indulge me,
because a long time ago in my business in radio
and TV sports, when 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 4 (15:23):
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 kind 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.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But we really felt like.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
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. And you know, the worst thing
we could do is sit still and not capitalize on
this opportunity.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Well, I think that's good advice.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
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 that 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 serve side. You talked
about distributors, but to get into these big stores, you know,
(16:28):
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 the process and what
does it look like from behind the scenes.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
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
suppliers and distributors, you know at a Walmart or a
big now you know, pick your name, Kroger, Safeway, and
(16:59):
they'll start taking means late summer, early fall, they'll start
looking at their current assortment and thinking about what's working,
what's not working. 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 of holistically at the shelf,
(17:20):
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, the hard part is
a new supplier is you don't have an existing relationship
(17:43):
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 lots of items and
work relationship. You know, for us, sometimes it's hard for
(18:03):
us to even get you know, buyers to answer our calls.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Or return our emails or find our way to the
front door.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And so you know, we had 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 to believe in
a couple of them. You know, you get a couple
of them to take some chances on you, and then
(18:29):
you build the momentum off of that, build up your
track record. Then you bring the track record to the
more skeptical one and say, hey, look at what we did.
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 3 (18:50):
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. It 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 4 (19:08):
And these buyers, you know, everybody's got 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
you know, so there's there's always you know, I'm sure
they get a deluge of emails and phone calls every
(19:28):
week and it's like, okay, great, another another dreamer here
with their you know, with their pipe dream.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And you know you've got to find a way to
break through that.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
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
under I'm sure it's since trial by fire. Just every day,
(20:00):
something crazy going on. But when it comes to leadership
and what you do specifically in your journey and with
your team, Cleam, what's leadership looking sound like to you? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:09):
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 set
a tone of a great sports team.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
You know, we talked about sports a bit on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
But you know, you think about what it takes to
win a super Bowl, right and of course I'm from Philly,
so we like to talk about the super Bowl at
least this year. But you know, you got to have
great a players at every position, and you know, you
want players that are team players.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
We have what we call a NOE a whole policy.
I'll be politically correct.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
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. Well, 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. I always, you know,
I want it to be the funnest place anyone's ever worked,
(21:10):
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. It's it's uh, you know, if 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
(21:33):
really the biggest thing that I focus on. And then
you know, of course from a business side, 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 1 (21:46):
You know, I always have a phrase sales.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
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 tributors,
so they're an important part, a 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
(22:10):
on the street level as well as with the national
accounts is huge.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So that that's an area I spend a lot of
my time on.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
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 1 (22:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
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 same
thing with supply chain, right, if we don't deliver product,
it's game over. So you know, those are kind of
the big rocks that I focus on.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, I appreciate you, shar and 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 2 (23:06):
So I'm glad that we talked about that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
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 2 (23:15):
What do you like to be a part of.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
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. We we lost our first child,
you know, essentially he was born prematurely due to a
thing called help syndrome, which is a version of a
(23:38):
syndrome called pre acclampsia that my wife had, which forced
an emergency c section at twenty nine weeks. And so
you know, that was obviously, you know, 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?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And so we started we started.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
A fund that we work with foundation called the preclamsy
A Foundation, and within that we started a fund called
the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund, And our goal was really
to cure pre aclamsy 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,
(24:23):
and ultimately cure this disease.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And so we've made a lot of progress.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
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. So thank you for
asking something that's really important to me and my family.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
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 turned something that's just horrific into something
where it's helping thousands of other families and people out there.
So I commend you, your wife, and your family for
doing that, and 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
(25:07):
you've got some great things happening. Not only you're a
sustainable company, but the growth has been incredible, especially with
surf side.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Just get some.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Final thoughts from you about all that you offer and
all the green 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.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
So serve. The floor is yours.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
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 it on the golf course,
(25:48):
and it's non carbonated.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It won't blow you.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
And I'll tell you once you Once you go surfside,
it's hard to go back.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
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 4 (26:10):
Okay, 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 handle is
at Drink Surfside and then Stateside Vodka Sodas and Statesidevodka
you'll find at www Dot Stateside Vodka dot com and
(26:31):
again on Instagram at Drink Stateside Outstanding.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Hey Clem, thank you so much, continue success.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Give my best to everybody at the team, and we
really appreciate you joining us and featuring you on CEOs.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
You should know, Thanks, Dennis, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
You can hear the whole conversation at this station's website
slash CEO. Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs,
you should know, as part of their ongoing commitment to
building strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses
within them. As a Bank for Community, the M and
T believes in dedicating time, talent, and resources to help
(27:04):
local businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
M and T Bank prison CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You should know.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
How by I heard.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Let's meet Clem Poppas.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the co founder and CEO for Stateside Brands,
which includes Vonka and Sodas regionally and SURFSI that is
available throughout the United States. Before we talk more about
Clem's story and his incredible brands, I first asked him
to talk a little bit about himself, where he's from
and his origin story.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Yes, 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 1 (00:34):
Great history of basketball. Tough loss for US this year,
but yeah, that's that's where I started.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I know Duke Griell 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. So I'm glad we have
that in common. Well, listen, we're obviously here to talk
about state Side, but also all the amazing drinks that
(01:05):
you have coming up. Vodka sodas and teas and surf side,
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 a family is incredible.
Really no experience whatsoever, 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 coming
(01:27):
up with the idea to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So I actually grew up in a family business, which
was a juice bottling company.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
So we used to make store brand juices, like depending
on what part of the country you live in, maybe.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
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 I exited
(01:59):
it 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 and very 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,
(02:21):
and I guess the funny part of it, he had
all these crazy contraptions, like a homemade still, and his
dad came down.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
He hadn't been to the gym.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
In a while, which is kind of funny, but he
had also been binging, breaking bad and he thought he
thought Matt was, you know, cooking up drugs in the basement.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So he summarily threw all the equipment out. And it's
fantastic that came from work. Get the hell out of
my house. What's going on here?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
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 State Side Vodka and really
kind of started as a as a regional brand in
Philadelphia and if we could be successful there, uh, then
we could look to expand it. And so, you know,
(03:13):
things took a lot of twists and turns along the way,
but it's been it's been a really fun ride.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Okay, when we talk about the company, obviously there's a
lot of different products that you're very proud of with everybody,
and we could go through that where people can get them,
and and we'll get into the weeds on 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 4 (03:37):
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
(04:00):
were you know, a different category 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 State Side, but you know, obviously a more
beachy summary feeling. And so we have a line of
surf Side iced teas and lemonades with vodka. We have
(04:23):
a full line of regular iced teas, lemonades and then
green teas as well.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
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
(04:48):
with the family and then starting this new one.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, 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 take it over and then pass it along
to my kids.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So I mean, that didn't exactly work out to plan.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
But the good thing is, you know, kind of being
in that position, I worked in a lot of different
parts of the company, and so you know, we had
a lab where we used to make up, you know,
new products and come up with new flavors. And in
the in the case of doing store brands, a lot
of times you're uh, copycatting the national.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Brands that are out there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
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 (05:33):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And then on the sales.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You know, there's a lot on the manufacturing side that's
the same.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
And I think you know, from the from the flavor
and formulation perspective, I actually think coming from a non
alcohol 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 1 (06:10):
Right.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Best version of a regular iced tea.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Without 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 3 (06:42):
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 on 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
(07:05):
said do everything on the set that way.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
When you get the job that you want, you'll know what.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Everybody's doing around you, and you'll be more centered and
you'll be clear about it and focused. And that's something
that I'd like you to articulate. 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 4 (07:27):
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 the mile on those shoes and you actually
did the job. And you don't necessarily have to do
every job for you know, ten years or anything. But
(07:49):
you know, if you know, you do the groundwork, and
depending on the industry you're in, like my industry, Hey,
I mean I tested waste water for a while. That
was my job one summer.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
It wasn't a 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, and 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,
(08:19):
I could 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. The same principle applies
to a lot of these areas well.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You had touched on it a little bit, and I
know you've got all the different products with the vodka,
the SODA's, and the teas, 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 4 (08:47):
We were kind of really first to market. You know,
there's been a lot of what we call malt 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
(09:08):
of process. So there's been teas and lemonades out 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.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You're using a malt or a brew based process.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And some of it was flavor profile.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
We felt a lot of the products out there were
overly sweetened, frankly, too many sugars. 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
(10:03):
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 mentioned in the 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 that calorie profile, that sugar profile,
(10:27):
and frankly, you know, not send us into a terrible
hangover or give us a headache the next day. And
then I think the one other thing not necessarily unique
to iced tea, but you know, within the beverage alcohol space,
there really aren't a lot of non carbonated options. So
having all that and then also being able to deliver
a non carbonated product that is really sessionable and delicious,
(10:51):
it's just something that really didn't exist in a big
way prior to serve side outstanding.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, if you could do this for me, I'd like
to have you explain your business plan and when it
comes to putting out your product, and you've got some
with the vodka that's regional, and then you've got surfside,
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 some are regional and
(11:17):
you've gone national on others.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Can you explain that for us?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So, I think you know, if you think about we
started with full proof, you know, eighty proof bottles of vodka.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You know, huge market, highly competitive.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
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, but a
fair amount of turnover. And so we felt like with
with our State Side vodka brand, you know, our first
mission was to win locally in our in our kind
of backyard. But you know that was a that was
(11:52):
a business plan that we look at it as more
slow and incremental. It takes a long time to convert
a vodka drinker. If you talk to, you know, quiz
one of your friends, you know, what did you like vodka?
What kind of And people you'll find are very committed
to their brand, so it takes a long They say, oh,
I'm a I'm a Tito's man, or I'm a Grey
Goos man or you know, and they get mad if
(12:13):
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 associated with
grow Spear.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So they're great bottles.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
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 Vodka soda, that took off really, really well, but
at that point we only had a pretty small cluster
(12:58):
of distribution kind of you know, let's say Philadelphia to
d C. 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 know, we
were a little late to the party. And you know,
(13:21):
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 1 (13:34):
But we didn't have that, and so to show up
the door to the door with a.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Brand or a product style that is already very saturated.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Was going to be very difficult. And so one of
the learnings from that.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Even though you know, state Sideboka and state Sideboca 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 so.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
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.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Model and said, hey, we got to go out and
in our business you have to use distributors.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's just legally mandated. It's the law.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
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 cover the whole, you know, the whole footprint. And
we had to you know, start selling into the chain stores,
which in many states the way the regulations are, they're
(14:39):
the big you know, the big retailers.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So we really took a different approach.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Right with the state side and the state side Backusota
was like kind of like start locally and then expand
out slowly, whereas with Serfside, we said, hey, now's the opportunity.
We got lightning in a bottle or a can as
the case may be in this situation, but we said
we got to go get it now. So we feel
like we're we're racing to the finish line with with surfside.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, can you do me a favor and indulge me,
because a long time ago in my business in radio
and TV sports, when 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 4 (15:23):
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 kind 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.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But we really felt like.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
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. And you know, the worst thing
we could do is sit still and not capitalize on
this opportunity.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Well, I think that's good advice.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
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 that 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 serve side. You talked
about distributors, but to get into these big stores, you know,
(16:28):
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 the process and what
does it look like from behind the scenes.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
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
suppliers and distributors, you know at a Walmart or a
big now you know, pick your name, Kroger, Safeway, and
(16:59):
they'll start taking means late summer, early fall, they'll start
looking at their current assortment and thinking about what's working,
what's not working. 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 of holistically at the shelf,
(17:20):
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, the hard part is
a new supplier is you don't have an existing relationship
(17:43):
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 lots of items and
work relationship. You know, for us, sometimes it's hard for
(18:03):
us to even get you know, buyers to answer our calls.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Or return our emails or find our way to the
front door.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And so you know, we had 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 to believe in
a couple of them. You know, you get a couple
of them to take some chances on you, and then
(18:29):
you build the momentum off of that, build up your
track record. Then you bring the track record to the
more skeptical one and say, hey, look at what we did.
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 3 (18:50):
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. It 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 4 (19:08):
And these buyers, you know, everybody's got 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
you know, so there's there's always you know, I'm sure
they get a deluge of emails and phone calls every
(19:28):
week and it's like, okay, great, another another dreamer here
with their you know, with their pipe dream.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And you know you've got to find a way to
break through that.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
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
under I'm sure it's since trial by fire. Just every day,
(20:00):
something crazy going on. But when it comes to leadership
and what you do specifically in your journey and with
your team, Cleam, what's leadership looking sound like to you? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:09):
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 set
a tone of a great sports team.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
You know, we talked about sports a bit on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
But you know, you think about what it takes to
win a super Bowl, right and of course I'm from Philly,
so we like to talk about the super Bowl at
least this year. But you know, you got to have
great a players at every position, and you know, you
want players that are team players.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
We have what we call a NOE a whole policy.
I'll be politically correct.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
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. Well, 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. I always, you know,
I want it to be the funnest place anyone's ever worked,
(21:10):
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. It's it's uh, you know, if 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
(21:33):
really the biggest thing that I focus on. And then
you know, of course from a business side, 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 1 (21:46):
You know, I always have a phrase sales.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
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 tributors,
so they're an important part, a 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
(22:10):
on the street level as well as with the national
accounts is huge.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So that that's an area I spend a lot of
my time on.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
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 1 (22:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
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 same
thing with supply chain, right, if we don't deliver product,
it's game over. So you know, those are kind of
the big rocks that I focus on.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, I appreciate you, shar and 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 2 (23:06):
So I'm glad that we talked about that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
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 2 (23:15):
What do you like to be a part of.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
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. We we lost our first child,
you know, essentially he was born prematurely due to a
thing called help syndrome, which is a version of a
(23:38):
syndrome called pre acclampsia that my wife had, which forced
an emergency c section at twenty nine weeks. And so
you know, that was obviously, you know, 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?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And so we started we started.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
A fund that we work with foundation called the preclamsy
A Foundation, and within that we started a fund called
the Peter Joseph Pappas Fund, And our goal was really
to cure pre aclamsy 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,
(24:23):
and ultimately cure this disease.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And so we've made a lot of progress.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
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. So thank you for
asking something that's really important to me and my family.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
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 turned something that's just horrific into something
where it's helping thousands of other families and people out there.
So I commend you, your wife, and your family for
doing that, and 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
(25:07):
you've got some great things happening. Not only you're a
sustainable company, but the growth has been incredible, especially with
surf side.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Just get some.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Final thoughts from you about all that you offer and
all the green 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.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
So serve. The floor is yours.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
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 it on the golf course,
(25:48):
and it's non carbonated.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It won't blow you.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
And I'll tell you once you Once you go surfside,
it's hard to go back.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
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 4 (26:10):
Okay, 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 handle is
at Drink Surfside and then Stateside Vodka Sodas and Statesidevodka
you'll find at www Dot Stateside Vodka dot com and
(26:31):
again on Instagram at Drink Stateside Outstanding.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Hey Clem, thank you so much, continue success.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Give my best to everybody at the team, and we
really appreciate you joining us and featuring you on CEOs.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
You should know, Thanks, Dennis, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
You can hear the whole conversation at this station's website
slash CEO. Our community partner, M and T Bank supports CEOs,
you should know, as part of their ongoing commitment to
building strong communities, and that starts by backing the businesses
within them. As a Bank for Community, the M and
T believes in dedicating time, talent, and resources to help
(27:04):
local businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed
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