R&D Radio: Monte Ammons from Liquid Sherpas

The Startup CPG Podcast

Startup CPG

Startup, Food, Business, Beverage, Cpg, Entrepreneurship

4.9 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of R&D Radio, hosted by food scientist Adam Yee, Adam sits down with Monte Ammons, founder of Liquid Sherpas. With more than 30 years spanning food service, Coca-Cola, Community Coffee, and natural ingredient sales at Dohler, Monte brings a uniquely operational lens to product development — one built not in a lab, but on the floor of real businesses learning hard lessons the hard way.

Monte makes the case that most founders jump straight into formulation when they should be doing the opposite: starting with a product brief, understanding the business, and doing the competitive homework before a single ingredient is sourced. He walks through how one client nearly launched into a saturated market — then pivoted his entire proposition 35 degrees by doing the upfront work first.

Listen in as they discuss:

Why formulation should be one of the last steps in product development, not the first
What a technical product brief is and how it prevents costly downstream surprises
How a client shifted consumer target, functional benefit, format, and channel — before spending real money
The realities of natural ingredient supply chains: seasonality, tariffs, sedimentation, and more
Why founders should start small, stay flexible, and invest as little as possible early on
How to research your category by talking to founders, breweries, and operators who've done it
The role of AI as a research accelerator — and why you still shouldn't ask it to develop your formula
Why the beverage industry's failure rate is so high, and what separates founders who make it

Episode Links:
Monte Ammons — Founder, Liquid Sherpas
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ammons/
🔗 Website: www.liquidsherpas.com

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Show Links:

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Episode music by Super Fantastics

Transcript

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0:00.0	When you're building a recipe or you're building a product, it has to be built where it can be replicated at scale, right?
0:18.0	It doesn't do you any good if you have a recipe that one chef can make one time.
0:22.7	It has to be able to translate across an entire restaurant chain and be done time and time and time
0:30.0	again. And if you can't replicate that product at scale, it's going to fail.
0:36.7	Hey, everyone. This is Adam Yee. Food scientists and podcast host of startup CBG's R&D Radio,
0:43.0	where you interview food scientists and product developers and what they do and how they
0:47.2	can help you build your CBG business. Today I'm interviewing Monty Amunds, founder of
0:53.4	Liquid Sherpas.
0:54.6	Monty's mission is empowering beverage innovators and leaders to achieve their vision and goals.
1:00.0	With more than 30 years in the beverage industry,
1:02.4	Monty has built a mix of skills and experience that help beverage companies thrive and scale.
1:07.9	He owns, partners in, and supports a number of ventures focused on helping founders
1:12.4	of food and beverage brands succeed. He specializes in sales, marketing, product development,
1:17.5	commercialization, and operations, covering everything from concept to category dominance. He also
1:24.4	mentors and advises startups and entrepreneurs through various programs, sharing what he learned to help them grow faster and smarter.
1:31.9	I found three key pieces of advice from Monty that I really resonated with in this episode.
1:36.9	One, start with a product brief, not a formulation.
1:40.0	Two, do the business homework before spending money on a product.
1:43.6	And three, you can use AI as a research assistant, but perhaps not as a formulator.
1:48.5	We'll dive into all that this episode.
1:50.5	Enjoy this episode with Monty.
1:51.7	I know you'll learn a lot.
	...

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