A soda from the South Side of San Antonio will soon be found on some Walmart shelves in Texas.
“We are in, baby!” wrote Andrew Anguiano on his Facebook page Wednesday. The co-founder and CEO of Southside Craft Soda, Anguiano had been chronicling his company’s journey through Walmart’s “Open Call” event, where it scours the country for domestically produced items to stock on store shelves.
Anguiano’s sodas, with flavors reflecting “the culture and flavors of South Texas,” made it through a screening process in San Antonio before the company was named a finalist, which came with a trip to Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.
The entire journey “has been surreal,” he said from the side of the road in East Texas Thursday morning, after two days in Bentonville. There, 540 companies from 48 states got tips on how to pitch Walmart buyers, including from Daymond John, an investor on the ABC reality show “Shark Tank.”
John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart, also made an appearance. In a news release, he described Open Call as “the heart of Walmart’s 10-year, $350 billion commitment to products made, grown or assembled in the U.S.,” which support more than 750,000 jobs nationwide.
The buyer Anguiano pitched told him the company is keen to put more Texas-made items on its Texas store shelves. Southside Craft Soda’s TexaCola and Limoncito flavors, in their new “sleek cans,” could hit certain Texas stores by February, he said.
Southside’s sodas used to come in vintage-looking glass bottles and were co-packed by Alamo Beer. But glass bottles are heavy, bulky and prone to breaking, he said. “Sleek cans,” which still hold 12 ounces of product but are taller and thinner than standard soda cans, are very on-trend right now, he said.
San Antonio has a storied packaged food history, but it has lacked a supportive community that can advocate on its behalf.
Anguiano’s sodas are now being made in Austin because there’s not a facility in San Antonio that can handle the volume Southside Craft Soda needs, he said.
While San Antonio has a number of small facilities and a couple of large ones that can co-pack for local companies, Anguiano said there’s nothing in the middle range. “A lot of my peers are having to move [their manufacturing] out of San Antonio as well.”
That’s partly why Anguiano co-founded a consumer packaged goods (CPG) association last year.
He said the CPG group, which now counts about 200 members, is talking to the city, the county and places like Brooks and Port San Antonio to develop a facility that could fulfill mid-sized manufacturing orders.
One member recently won a similar open call for local products. San Antonio’s Maria Flores, owner of Hess Street Foods, earned H-E-B’s first prize in its Quest for the Best competition for her chorizo seasoning paste and Mexican chorizo seasoning.
The recognition comes with $20,000 and the promise that her products will be added to H-E-B shelves.
Winning these types of competitions can be life-changing for small businesses, Anguiano said — but he also hopes it opens the eyes of potential investors.
Packaged food and beverages are “a real, real industry that can actually change economies and create jobs, right?” he asked. “Walmart is number one on Fortune’s Global 500, and Amazon is number two. What does that tell you about packaged goods?”
