Ken MacKenzie Of Fresh Victor On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand

An Interview With Martita Mestey

Quality- People gravitate to something that is made with quality and care. You want to inspire and demonstrate a reason for being.

As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ken MacKenzie.

Ken MacKenzie is the co-founder and co-CEO of Nine Country Brands Inc., the creators of Fresh Victor, a line of premium chilled blends for delicious and foolproof mixed drinks. A successful serial entrepreneur, Ken brings two decades of experience working in the creation, import and distribution of spirits and craft beverages to the company.

Prior to founding Fresh Victor, Ken was the co-founder of Republic Tequila and later Republic Spirit Blends. He was also responsible for the import, development, and launch of multiple other unique spirits over the course of his illustrious career, among them Onyx Coffee Liquors and his 100% agave tequila Amate, which achieved mass high-end demand in the US.

Ken’s work in the spirits industry can be traced back to 1997, when he apprenticed in Guadalajara to learn the premium pure agave tequila business from the ground up. He soon launched his own consultancy, LA Mission S.A. de C.V., and devoted the next decade to opening the doors for high-end 100% agave tequila importation into the US.

Upon his return to the states, Ken founded Travesia Import Group, where he continued to import, distribute, and consult on premium liquor brands. He then branched out to create and curate a portfolio of bespoke Texas spirits and mixers distributed by Republic National Distributors.

Ken has been a noteworthy and frequent speaker at high-profile industry gatherings, educating the beverage market and hospitality industry on 100% agave tequila. His Republic and Amate tequila brands have won more than 15 top industry accolades over the years, including recognition by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, and numerous medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Denver International Spirits Competition.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in Northern California with a large extended family all around me that enjoyed getting together to celebrate with food and drink. Great food and cocktails have been part of my life for as long as I can remember as I associate these things with warm and loving family moments and milestones.

Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food or beverage brand you are leading?

Realizing that there were many exquisite spirit brand offerings, but nothing in the mixer category to point to in order to make fresh, high quality cocktails and mocktails. It felt like mixers had a bad name due to the ingredients being used and the preservatives to keep them on shelf for extended periods of time. This was very apparent both throughout the industry as well as at home with consumers wishing to entertain and make exceptional drinks quickly.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I felt that if I could set out to make exceptional fresh mixers in my kitchen merely using 3–4 fresh ingredients then I would be able to capture lightning in a bottle. I came to learn that it is a lot more complicated than that when titrating up to production and creating a shelf life for a fresh, cold chain refrigerated product that you wish to commercialize. Initial batches of Fresh Victor barely made it to the market place prior to the code dates expiring. This taught me so much about the realities of distribution and shelf placement vs what the consumer wishes to see available for purchase. It also created strategies for approaching on-premise vs off premise sales approach.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food or beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Believing that it is as easy as “If I like it then other people will like it as well and I will be able to sell this to an awaiting audience of interested consumers.”

Creating something and having the ability to commercialize it through production/manufacturing, third party distribution, retail, direct to consumer and the logistics around all of it is extremely daunting at best and often unrealistic, especially if you have never done something like it before with your prior experience.

If it was easy then everyone would be doing it. As simple as it sounds, it is true. A great idea is just that, a great idea. Superimposing it onto an entire business plan is a whole separate set of challenges that one is most often not prepared for due to inexperience.

Best way to avoid missteps and errors is to solicit the expertise of people who have done it before. Draw off their learning and experience so they can provide a roadmap of what not to do or areas of concern that can be addressed and navigated prior to learning the hard way or spending money to learn. Create an advisory board and share in successes.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Understand the retail climate through in-products. How is your product prodigiously different or unique from the other offerings and why will people feel that your product offering is of interest to them. What is the political climate pertaining to distribution. How will you approach the market where you are solving a problem or demonstrating that your product will have an immediate impact on sales….

Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?

I stick to the notion that you need to surround yourself with advisors, investors and co-workers that add value to everything that you do. You want people that can help with translating the idea to turn it into a business reality that makes sense. Don’t ever spend investors’ money to learn lessons. Use precious funds to scale once you are beyond proof of concept and really understand how to scale your vision efficiently.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I would always recommend that you partner or hire someone that is within your network of friends or colleagues or comes highly recommended by someone that you unconditionally trust. Trusting your vision to a stranger is a very difficult thing to do prior to having any previous relationship or work history together. You do not want to introduce a difficult working relationship at the infancy of your vision.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I find that it is more often a better situation and story if you can bootstrap during the learning and launch stages of the new venture. Again, you do not want to take on other people’s money to learn about your own business and how things work. You want to use money to scale the business and increase the footprint that is already working. Investors will respect that much more. The initial risk should be your own…. One source of early capital can be friends and family round….

Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?

Always use experienced people as you do not want inexperience or a rush to get things done to be your potential downfall. While I do not suggest wasting money or funds on third parties when they are not necessary, you cannot come back from egregious errors that occur early on due to something not being set up right or not understanding what was needed in the first place. There are great intellectual property and trademark attorneys.

Whenever looking for a co-packer try to actually partner with them in a more meaningful way. This may be through equity or option grants. They may be a really strong ally when it comes to sourcing ingredients as it is what they do day in and day out and they know the production and manufacturing side of the business.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why?

Vision- Why are you creating this product? Is it solving a problem or are you doing this better than others have or could?

Quality- People gravitate to something that is made with quality and care. You want to inspire and demonstrate a reason for being.

Points of difference- There should be 2–3 distinct things that you are able to point to out of the gate that demonstrates what makes you and your product proposition different from other offerings or your competitors. You need a narrative that will allow you to begin a conversation that is both interesting as well as captivating.

Transparency- Younger people as well as discerning consumers demand product transparency these days. They wish to know how the product is made, where and what specific attributes are associated with the brand proposition. Why should they purchase yours above others? Can they feel good about using your product?

Passion- As the brand champion of your offering you truly need to love and believe it what you are doing to succeed. Your attitude and how you present your brand is everything. You need to convince an entire universe that this is the best idea ever. This should be fun and something that you really enjoy doing. If not, people will pick up on it quickly.

Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?

Solve a problem and find ways to offer something that people truly want and enjoy. There should be specific aspects of your product that people will want to share and introduce to others as they are proud that they found it and want to be on trend with friends and family. Hopefully there is an association with celebrating, fun, love and sharing about your product. A birthday cake is associated with celebrating and symbolizes people coming together to recognize joy. What does your product symbolize, represent and how is it generally used?

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Our product solves problems on-premise pertaining to labor issues, quality and trading up for fresh as opposed to shelf stable. We are clean label, preservative free, fair trade, non-GMO, kosher, low calorie, gluten free and we use 100% solar power at the production facility. As a first to category proposition, we are attempting to demonstrate that people can and should drink better. Additionally, our board and members are directly affiliated with the cause of the Silicon Valley Animal shelter. My wife and I have adopted 4 dog rescues from the shelter and actively support the ethical and humane treatment of animals and the need to do better. That is a cause that is very near and dear to our hearts.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

There are too many to list. Two that come to mind….. The need for society to embrace and love each other, politics and polarization aside, is top of mind. I think a great bridge for this is the adoption and love for the dogs and cats that need great and loving homes as well as the oversite to control animal populations to curb the problems that we have seen in the past. So much joy for both children and adults alike comes from loving dogs and cats. There is nothing like it.

Second, our extended family has a home in Kenya that we spent some time in this summer and were absolutely blown away by the people and culture. Never have I experienced so much kindness and genuine care amongst everyone. It is awe inspiring. The need for clean water is apparent and something that we feel passionately about. Our extended family has created a clean water initiative and is constantly raising funds to be deployed throughout specific areas of Africa that need it the most. This shall be an ongoing concern.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.