First up: Slate Milk, a Massachusetts-based food and beverage company founded in 2019 on the idea of making chocolate milk healthier without sacrificing taste.
After raising nearly $52,000 on Kickstarter to launch the brand, the company quickly pivoted to better-for-you protein drinks, manufactured using ultra filtration to squeeze out lactose from the milk and naturally increase protein concentration while using only natural sweeteners and no added sugar.
Slate is also big on packaging recyclability, using only aluminum cans and recovered plastic. Besides drinks, the firm offers high-protein cookies and a milk chocolate drink mix.
The company’s products are available in US retail and D2C, including big-box stores and major grocery retailers, with further growth expected this summer.
So how did it all begin? We chat to Slate co-founder Manny Lubin . . .
“Me and my business partner Josh [Belinsky] were in our mid 20s drinking a lot of chocolate milk, specifically lactose free chocolate milk, pretty much every day, and realized it was high in sugar and wasn’t quite high enough in protein to help us hit our protein goals. We decided we could help give chocolate milk ‘a clean slate’ – that’s where the name of the company came from.
“The concept started in late 2017; we launched into the market in late 2019, early 2020, and we have continued to evolve our products and brand ever since.”
“We realized pretty early on that the real opportunity was in better-for-you protein drinks. So the brand switched from healthy chocolate milk to that somewhat quickly.”
Manny Lubin, Slate
What was it like to be a new company during the COVID-19 pandemic?
“I could say we were not prepared for a global pandemic,” Lubin said ruefully, “but our products are shelf-stable, so I don’t think it necessarily hurt or helped us. It just changed the strategy.”
The strategy had been to diversify into retail as early as possible. “We started D2C and we did start in some retail stores pretty early on. We were in a couple of divisions of Whole Foods Market, we were at Harris Teeter; those were two of our launch partners.
“Then company grew and now we’re in over 15,000 stores all over the country, including in most major grocery stores [and] we work with mass stores.”
Protein milk drinks are Slate’s core product offering, but more recently, the company has branched into RTD coffee, a lucrative category in its own right and one still ripe for innovation in high-protein. Slate offers four SKUs: Mocha Latte, Vanilla Latte, Caramel Latte, and Sweet Cream Latte; all made with ultra-filtered, lactose-free milk.
But getting protein coffee right – from taste to consistency – has its challenges. “You’re not only dealing with flavor and sweetness, but also with viscosity. In true water-based drinks, the viscosity is typically pretty consistent amongst all products,” Lubin explained.
Slate’s coffee products pack 20g of protein, similar to other protein coffee products on the market. Is that the maximum amount possible in a product of this type? “With any ingredient, there’s a tipping point [in terms of how much is too much],” Lubin said. “We’ve done a lot of testing to understand that.”
As for where protein coffee sits in the wider RTD beverage category, it’s somewhere between protein drinks and traditional RTD coffee, Lubin told us.
“A lot of people are using Slate’s protein coffees as a replacement for their protein shakes,” he said.
“A high-protein RTD coffee has dual functionality: you gain 20 grams of protein daily while still enjoying your coffee and getting that caffeine in, all from one beverage.”
Manny Lubin, Slate
This feeds into the wider trend that’s taken high-protein food and beverage into the mainstream.
“Consumers are seeking more efficient ways to increase protein in their diets,” said Lubin. “A decade ago, protein shakes were post-workout drinks; now people have them at lunch, as a breakfast replacement as a 3PM pick-me-up, or just to have an indulgence throughout the day. Now, people feel as though they have permission to drink a protein shake throughout the day.”
Coffee too, has its place as usage occasions evolve. “Our protein coffees and shakes are typically consumed by the same customer at different times of the day,” Lubin said, “So if they can get protein in their coffee and also get protein by drinking a shake, it’s a great option for multiple times of the day.”
What’s next for Slate? “Stay laser-focused on what we can do better,” Lubin said. “We talk a lot about healthy minded customers and better-for-you – but indulgence is still at the core of Slate. We want our milkshakes to be enjoyed, so look out for even more indulgent flavors.
The company’s chocolate milk mix and its only ready-to-eat food product to-date, the protein cookies, were both ‘highly requested’, he noted.
“But most of the innovation that you’ll see from us is going to be in beverage. And this summer, you are also going to see a lot of growth in retail for Slate, nationally.”