Founder Feature: Maria of The Purple Drop
The Startup CPG Podcast
Startup CPG
4.9 • 642 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Maria Velasquez, founder of Purple Drop — a Peruvian super drink made from purple corn grown high in the Andes. Maria is bringing chicha morada, a staple in every Peruvian household, to the US market for the first time as a better-for-you RTD. And she is doing it with her mother-in-law's recipe, organic agave, and zero compromise on the integrity of the original.
Caitlin opens with a passage from her personal library on ancient fermentation that captures just how deep the history of chicha actually goes. Maria meets that with her own origin story: a Moroccan woman who married into a Peruvian family, fell in love with the culture and the cuisine, and had a lightbulb moment in Lima over Christmas that turned into a brand. She also explains why the one RTD version already on the market — packed with sugar, additives, and coloring — was exactly what she did not want to make.
From there the conversation covers the functional story behind purple corn (studies show it has 10 times more antioxidants than blackberries), the co-packer journey that eventually landed at a brewery, a rebrand that brought llamas and vibrant color to life, and a launch strategy built around winning Peruvian Americans first before casting a wider net. Maria spent a decade in B2B cybersecurity marketing and it shows — in the community-first approach, the food service play she is already running with Peruvian restaurants in the NYC tri-state area, and the PR box she is designing to transport people straight to Peru.
Listen in as they cover:
- How a Christmas trip to Lima and a mother-in-law's recipe became the foundation of Purple Drop
- The functional benefits of purple corn and why anthocyanins make this more than just a great-tasting drink
- The co-packer challenge of commercializing a product that American manufacturers had never made before
- How Maria is building community by winning Peruvian Americans first
- The rebrand that brought the brand's personality to life
- What's next: lucuma flavors, concentrated antioxidant shots, energy ideas, and a spring launch on Shopify
Whether you are a founder navigating the beverage aisle with something truly new, a buyer looking for the global flavor story your customers are asking for, or someone who has always wanted to try chicha without booking a flight to Lima, this episode is for you.
Episode Links:
Purple Drop Website: https://www.thepurpledrop.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heypurpledrop/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-purple-drop/
Maria Velasquez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-vepa/
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- Episode music by Super Fantastics
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We were drinking chicha every day. |
| 0:12.0 | It's refreshing. |
| 0:13.5 | Yes, it's dark and dense purple color, but it's actually pretty light. |
| 0:17.0 | The color is deceiving. |
| 0:18.6 | And it's a staple in every Peruvian household, every single day |
| 0:22.1 | with a meal. And it also makes a great cocktail or maptail mixer for happy hours. And so we were |
| 0:27.4 | really, really fully immersed in that. And we thought, you know what, why not? Why not go back to |
| 0:31.3 | the U.S. and figure out how to do this? But also, we wanted to do it right. And we wanted to pay homage |
| 0:36.0 | and respect the traditional Abolita recipe |
| 0:38.7 | without losing too much of that integrity when we commercialize it. And all that to say, |
| 0:43.6 | there is an RTD version that comes actually from Peru. There's a Peruvian company that |
| 0:47.5 | imports that into the U.S., but it's packed with sugar, it's got some additives, some coloring, |
| 0:52.1 | and we wanted to do the opposite of that. |
| 0:54.6 | So we're not trying to be the lowest sugar-type beverage on the shelf. |
| 0:58.8 | We're trying to go for the global flavor while maintaining the integrity of that OG recipe. |
| 1:04.7 | Hey, everybody. This is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at Startup CPG. |
| 1:09.3 | We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down |
| 1:12.5 | with Maria Velasquez, founder of Purple Drop, a Peruvian super drink made from purple corn grown |
| 1:17.9 | high in the Andes. Maria is bringing Chichamirata a staple in every Peruvian household to the |
| 1:23.8 | U.S. market for the first time as a Better for You RTD. |
| 1:32.6 | We're talking about her journey from B-to-B cybersecurity marketing to launching a beverage brand, |
| 1:37.4 | how her mother-in-law's recipe inspired the whole thing in Purple Corn's health benefits. |
... |
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