We were lucky to catch up with Alton But recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alton, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The inspiration behind Moshi first came up while I was working as a chef in an upscale Asian restaurant in NYC. This was about 6 years ago, but this style of cuisine was already making waves in most metropolitan cities. What I noticed while working there was that the team put a lot of thought and care into the dishes that were being served and had equally thoughtful cocktails. However, when it came to a more premium non-alcoholic option, this is where the restaurant seemed to fall short. In fact, the only thing that seemed to fit this criteria at the establishment I was currently working at was Mexican Coke.

I started to do more research in similar style restaurants and found more or less the same; either a more upscale non-alcoholic Asian inspired option did not exist, or it was an Asian beverage option that had been around for decades and clearly added to the menu as an afterthought.

As someone who did not often enjoy alcoholic drinks, especially with my meals, I definitely felt like there was an opportunity here. As I began researching more into this space, Asian RTD drinks in retail as well had not yet caught up to the standards of American markets (natural ingredients, non-gmo, no high fructose corn syrup, etc…) With all this in mind, I knew that there was defintiely a much bigger market out there.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Moshi is a premium, award-winning sparkling beverage that highlights classic Asian flavors through real ingredients. I founded the brand in 2020 because I wanted to see more thoughtful and higher quality beverage options at restaurants, particularly familiar to the Asian American experience.

Moshi’s first products were a line of yuzu beverages in four variations: original, unsweetened (0g sugar/0 cal), white peach, and red shiso with apple — all made using yuzu sourced directly from Japan. Two new sparkling matcha and oolong lines, each with four flavors, launched earlier this year in 2023.

When I first created this brand, I wanted quality of our beverages to be paramount. As a former chef; this was incredibly important to me. I wasn’t focused on what was on trend, or how to “grow the brand”. I just wanted to create drinks that utilized real ingredients as much as possible and highlight flavors you traditionally didn’t see widely available in mainstream American markets in an accessible manner.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When we first started the business, we had two major challenges in our sites; the upcoming pandemic, and the education required behind our products.

We started the business literally one moth before NYC completely shutdown. And even a month later when the city opened back up for essential businesses all the grocery stores and restaurants we approached were not interested in looking at new lines at all. They were, like many other businesses, just trying to survive with what they had.
Another challenge we faced was the education required to sell our product. Few people know that Kombucha has actually been around for decades, but it has only recently gained popularity once customers began to understand its benefits. Similarly our flagship sparkling yuzu line was something that required explaining to most of our early customers.
Because we were new to the industry, we had to go door to door, grocer to grocer, restaurant to restaurant, face rejection after rejection, and do our own deliveries until we could build a proof of concept that convinced local distributors to take a chance on us. This was especially challenging given the state of our country in 2020.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of things that most young startups need to do in order to create new business is cold calls. Moshi spent a lot of time DMing, emailing, and LinkedIn messaging potential buyers who would be a could fit for our brand in the first 1-2 years of our company. Most of these “cold calls” don’t receive a response, but sometimes you get lucky. In 2021, we were able to find out the name of the US DAISO (A Japanese household goods and snacks / beverage chain with shoppers in our demographic) buyer and sent her a message on LinkedIn. A few days later she responded to our message and asked us to send samples.

I’ve always believed that in any interaction, being face to face with the other person helps build a relationship and in the case of sales, definitely gives you a better chance. I fibbed and told the buyer that I happened to be in town next week and would love to meet, discuss the brand, and do the tasting in person. She agreed.

That same day, I immediately booked my flight and hotel for the following week and ended up having a great meeting!
A few months later she advised that our brand received approval from Japan and that we would be launching into all 80+ US stores.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drinkmoshi.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinkmoshi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drinkmoshi/