Mexican Mezcal from Rosa Luna Organic ( JC Estrada)

https://mezcalrosaluna.com/

Made with Agave , Water and lots of love! 

How is Mezcal made organically? 

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Transcript

0:10

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Mr. JC Estrada. He is the Director of Operations at Rosa Luna, and has a very exciting product for us to talk about today. Something that we haven't discussed before, but welcome to the show, sir. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate you coming on. I, I'm, very interested to learn more about the history of your company and of, your background. So if you don't mind telling us a little bit more specifically about you, and then we'll go into your company. Yeah, of course. my name is Juan Carlos Estrada. Most people call me JayZ, especially in the us but I was born and raised here in Mexico and most of my life I have lived in the northern part of Mexico in a border city with the United States. And the past 10 years I have been working on CPG. I started in beer. I spent seven years in beer, and then I transitioned to agave spirits. And for the past three, three and a half years, I have been working with Rosa Luna. my current role is director of operations. I'm not solely focused on packaging, but of course packaging is one of the critical areas that I oversee. E Exactly. packaging is so important to operations. the way a business works often revolves around the packaging or, or the challenges that packaging ensues. Rosa Luna is a spirits company and you are making all kinds of spirits that are, Just considered Mez Mezcal or only, are you making tequila as well or would you consider that to be a contradiction to make both? Yeah. it might be worth if we, start sharing a little bit of context of what Mezcal is and yeah, and everything I understand. Most of your audience might not be familiar with mezcal, but especially in the US most people is familiar with tequila. tequila is a huge category. so mezcal, same as tequila, has a denomination of origin, which means can only be produced in Mexico. I. But tequila has his own region and mezcal has his own region. Most tequila comes from the state of Jalisco, not only but most, mostly from Jalisco and mezcal comes mostly from the state of Oaxaca. This is where our distillery is located. Both tequila and mezcal are agave, spirits, different variety of agave, and even though the mezcal category is much smaller, is getting. Very popular. the people is connecting because one of the main differences that mezcal made, artisanal in artisanal way. So it's a small batches, traditional distilleries, a lot of handcraft, processes. So, the consumers especially, nowadays are really, connected with that. Connecting with that and, yeah. it's becoming very popular and it's, and also because of the flavor is very unique. it has this smoky hint, because of the process. So, so yeah, I can see the category like 10 years from now is gonna be, is gonna be completely different. I know that the tequila category has really grown dramatically recently. I can, and I agree with you. I think Ms. Cal will be, one of the next spirits to take off. it's your company is an organic company. do you wanna speak to that a little bit? Tell us, why that's important to you and how you differentiate that way. Yeah, no, absolutely. we truly believe that sustainability is one of our key differentiators. we are certified organic, which means that, a lot of things, but one of the main things is that we don't use any kind of chemicals in farming. So no pesticides, no artificial, fertilizers. It's all like natural and organic and I think we were, we are one of the very few brands, the mezcal brands that is certified organic. Is, is a hard certification to get and even more hard to, to maintain or to keep across the years. But, but yeah, this is one of the key differentiators. And not only that, this year actually we started a partnership with, the number one institution in Mexico is the top university when it comes to, agricultural science. And they are helping us to fully implement not only organic, but regenerative farming. so we have people from the university on a daily basis working with us on the field and the distillery and, and yeah, the goal is that eventually this year we are going to achieve this, fully regenerative agriculture practices implemented. Oh, wow. That's a big deal. That's not easy to do. I know. Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. It's a, it is a, it's a huge project. It is a big challenge, but, but as I said, the sustainability is part of the DNA of our company, so we are really committed to the, to this. That's great. Have, one thing that some spirits companies are trying in, with some success is having instituting a reusable program for their packaging. Is that something that you would consider, having maybe a refill station at your, local grocery stores or something like that? Yeah, Absolutely. This is definitely on the pipeline and it is one of the projects that gets me like really excited. but honestly it is not gonna be easy. I can see this as a huge challenge. my, because of my background in beer, I'm really familiar with how this, supply chain for Kes works and the reverse logistics and everything. So I think eventually we'll have something similar for spirits. I know there's a company that is already doing some interesting stuff, not with cex, but it's more with glass containers. But, but yeah, I think this is eventually is going to be a, a big, way to, for the supply chain of spirits. However, alcohol in general is very regulated and sometimes the regulations change from state to state. But, on top of that, since mezcal is a product with a denomination of origin for now can only be, can only be like filled in Mexico. So that makes it a little bit more complicated because you are managing, reverse logistics from the states to the south part of Mexico. but yeah, I think eventually, we'll find a way to, to implement some sort of that. That's a fascinating idea to con, to look at, a spirit or a, bottled alcohol similar to beer, in logistics. I think what that would be so fascinating to see it at in a keg. See how that performs. And I could see that at a high-end restaurant, pouring the Rosa Luna Mezcal into, the, into a glass. I think that's a wonderful idea. Has anybody ever tried that with a spirit? I wonder. That's, it's a fascinating thought. Yeah. Yeah. as I said, there is a company that is already like running some or doing some volume with in, in that sort. And, but because of the denomination of origin, there are no like mezcal brands on this. At this point. Right. Becomes a challenge, right? It's, it's like champagne for, sp France. Yeah. very important point. how can spirit brands be more sustainable? What are some things that maybe you've done that you could suggest to other companies? No, absolutely. for me, everything started at the field. It doesn't matter if it's agave or if the raw materials is corn or wheat or, whatever. Right. I think the number one thing that any spirit company can do is to prioritize the soil health and to minimize or ideally refuse the use of those agrichemicals. There are a lot of studies that demonstrate that these, products are bad for the really bad, for the environment and. Yeah, I don't think any brand can be, even though if it is, it has the most sustainable packaging in the world. They're on the other hand, they're not prioritizing the soil health. it cannot be a sustainable, a truly sustainable brand. So that will be like the number one for me and the number two, and based on my experience. I think it might sound cliche, but you cannot improve what is not measured. So for me, it's really important to have an idea of what is the carbon footprint. carbon footprint is not everything, but is, it's a really good way to start. And for example, before I, I got my first estimation in my mind, solar panels was a top priority. Probably the number one thing that we needed to do. But when I got the data and I see that was not even in the top five things that we need to prioritize. so we needed to address first farming and packaging and transportation and that below that energy was a small part. So that doesn't mean it, it is not relevant. I still think that we should, use, solar and renewable energies, but, when it comes to the carbon emissions, it's not as big as some other categories that we need to address before. I love that you have to have a starting point to improve, right? And I think that's, oftentimes I'm asked that question, what do you recommend, to companies to make packaging more sustainable? And I always start with that. Say, you gotta know where you're at first. and then you look at five different ideas. So I totally support what you're saying. That's very important. a little different question here. I'd like to know maybe what's your favorite, drink, made from, Rosa Luna? mezcal? or do you, is it just something that you drink over ice? personally, I really like how Rosa Luna eat. That's for me, but, for what I'm seeing, most of the people, prefer cocktails. And we recently, I think it was past the last year, we won a competition for the best margarita, competing with mezcal and also tequila brands. Great. So any kind of margarita like the regular one or, yeah, any kind. It will be a great option. That's brilliant. Can, is it for sale in the us. Yeah, absolutely. Great. And, all over, or is it, specific to an area to buy? you can go to our website and you can have Rosa Luna deliver to your house pretty much in every state in the us. but we're also, with the, like major retailers in the US like total wine or for example here in Texas. Specs or twin liquors. Great. that's good news that it's widely available. I'll be sure to pick some up next time I'm at the liquor store. Yeah, absolutely. Great. thank you sir. Anything else that you wanted to tell us about, Rosa Luna? Yeah, I think I would like to share. Where we are. right now in terms of packaging, the podcast is about packaging. So yeah, there's this, funny story. I joined the company in the middle of the pandemic. So at that time, the supply chain, like pretty much collapsing in Mexico, like every, every glass factory for instance, was not able to, to take new projects. so we had the challenge and at that time we were like, pretty much. Producing all the packaging overseas. Yep. So I had this amazing opportunity when I joined the company to start developing every part of the packaging here in Mexico to be produced here in Mexico, which also helped a lot with the carbon footprint because we could a lot of carbon emissions and transportation. Yeah. and, yeah, it was a fascinating project. nowadays we're producing all packaging really close to the art distillery. And we make sure that every piece of that aligns with our mission of sustainability. for example, our borrow incorporates, recycled glass, I have closely worked with the bottle producer. They have an, this like beautiful project when they collect, glass bottles from the city. the factory is located in Guadalajara is the number two largest city in, in Mexico. So there's a lot of, places where they can collect, the bottles to produce the Kool-Aid and incorporates this recycled content into the bottle. or like I can share also that, or boxes are made with the only, recycled cardboard. Great. And, and or labels. That's also really interesting is a really, good project of cycling. The labels are made with agave waste, the agave fibers that are, that is the byproduct of the mescal process. That's great. The fibers first are used to make Coffee bags. And once the coffee bags are discarded, we reuse again that to make this, this agave paper. So, so it really, I mean it really aligns, with, with our like prioritize sustainability and yeah, this is what we try to do to make sure that every piece of packaging, even if. This is not something that the end customer will perceive. for instance, the pallets. we are really careful to use, reuse pallets or we are, we just started using some pallets that have like aga blocks and reduces like 35% the, the quantity of the wood. So yeah, yeah, we are, we really try to. To have a packaging that aligns with the, what we are doing in the field. I think you're a great example of what people should do when they have a CPG company. I think they should not accept status quo and look outside and see how you can make packaging locally or, with high recycled content. Well done, sir. This is really impressive. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. thank you so much Juan Carlos, I really appreciate this. And I'm excited to tell the world about your company and about, Rosa Luna. Thank you. thanks for the opportunity. Yeah.