Greg Savarese - Sino Taste

In this episode of the Radical Global Marketing Podcast, we sit down with Greg Savarese, founder and CEO of Sino Taste, a comprehensive food and beverage investment group shaping the future of coffee in China.

Greg shares his remarkable 20-year journey in China, from co-founding a fast-casual restaurant group to pivoting back to his first passion: coffee. Today, Sino Taste operates across the entire coffee value chain, from sourcing and roasting to retail and wholesale, with bold plans to integrate even further by launching their own coffee farm in Yunnan.

We explore how Greg balances his roles in strategy, business development, and marketing, and why brand storytelling is critical in China’s fast-evolving coffee scene. From premium positioning with Ocean Grounds to expanding into traditional and instant coffee segments, Sino Taste’s portfolio is designed to capture the diversity of Chinese coffee consumers.

Greg also reflects on:

• The opportunities and challenges of building a vertically integrated F&B business in China
• How China’s unique food culture shapes consumer expectations
• Why coffee in China is still in its early growth stage, and why the next few years will be critical
• The role of marketing and storytelling in driving both B2C and B2B growth

Whether you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or coffee lover, this episode offers fascinating insights into building a modern brand in one of the world’s most dynamic markets.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Thank you very much. Hello,

SPEAKER_01 0:21

everyone, and welcome back to the latest episode of the Radical Global Marketing Podcast. And today is another special episode. I'm delighted to welcome Greg Savarese, friend of the show. Greg is also the co-founder and CEO of Sinotaste, a comprehensive food and beverage investment group with a focus on the complete coffee value chain in mainland China. Now, part of Greg's day-to-day role encompasses marketing strategy and business development. And he's going to take us through his his career journey and his day-to-day business in much better than I can in more detail in just a moment. But first, as ever, we have a quick word from our sponsor. The Radical Global Marketing Podcast is produced in association with Brandigo China. Brandigo's team of local and international marketing talent has been helping multinational brands achieve marketing success in China for almost two decades. This is founded on their unique, radically relevant China marketing methodology built on insight, creativity and flawless execution, across multiple China marketing channels. To find out more about Brandigo China and how they can help your brand meet your business objectives, visit brandigochina.com or contact the Brandigo China team via email. Greg, good morning. How are you doing? Good morning, Stephen. I'm great. Happy to be here. I'm really pleased and thank you for taking the time. Now, usually at this stage of the podcast, I ask our guests, where in the world are you sat? But this is a special occasion because we're actually sat face to face. It doesn't happen very often. I want to go into sort of your day-to-day role. I want to go into the brand and how the marketing shapes your strategy at Cyanotaste in just a moment. But just to kick things off, could you give us a little bit of insight into your career journey today, a little bit of an intro and how you ended up here?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Sure. Well, I've been in China, I guess, around 20 years. I first came as a student back in 2004, studying in Beijing. And that experience as a study abroad student changed the rest of my life. Yeah, it's cool. I completely fell in love with the language, culture, the history, the whole experience, and being part of this fascinating, exciting, fast-growing, fast-paced place. It was magical. It felt like you could do anything at any time. The sky was the limit. So after graduating, I came back to China, and I worked for the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies, which was the program that I participated in. And then in 2009, I co-founded the Side of the Case group with three other American guys. And that started a 15-year journey of entrepreneurship and business building and business growth, sales, marketing, operations. We started off with one restaurant in Beijing's Wudaokou. Actually, we started off as a coffee shop. And it quickly inspired and through twists and turns quickly became a full-service restaurant. And then from one full-service restaurant, we ended up with eight or nine full-service restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing. As we were building the business, we saw a few different opportunities. We saw some headwinds in the restaurant space, really for what we were doing, how we were doing it. I didn't believe that what we didn't believe that we were able to compete as effectively as we could. What was the concept of the restaurant? It was fast casual, Western style place, you know, place you could get a good burger, good pasta, fresh juice, good cup of coffee. Yeah. But, you know, we saw our costs increasing at such a rapid pace and the increase of those costs outpaced our ability to increase prices on the menu. Sure. Right. And we We thought we would quickly be at a place where our products and services would not be at a price point that would be competitive in the market. So we kind of came back and we're observing the market and we decided to come back to our roots. And our roots initially from that first store in Mudaco years ago was a coffee shop. That was our initial love, our initial intention. And we got back into coffee and we repivoted and we focused on coffee. And we started to open coffee shops. We partnered up... Under the Steiner Taste brand still? No, no. Steiner Taste is just our corporate holding company, our corporate name. And we partnered up with a brand in Beijing called Ocean Grounds. Ocean Grounds was very early to the specialty coffee space in China. They were really the fathers of specialty coffee. They had a 6EQ ProBat coffee roaster in their Beijing store. They were bringing in coffees from all over the world. And there was an opportunity at that time to partner up with them and to really serve as the infrastructure to expand the brand and the business. So we started opening up Ocean Grounds coffee shops in Shanghai back in 2015. From there, we continued to expand the coffee shops. We had an opportunity to build our our B2B wholesale distribution business really by accident. We were sitting in our second store at Hong Kong Plaza. And there was a well-dressed business type gentleman having a coffee. And he asked our barista, can I buy a few bags of coffee for our office? So my ears perked up. My ears perked up for two reasons. One, I was surprised that somebody asked. And two, I was hoping that the staff was going to say yes. I didn't want to jump in. So they said, sure. And then they came over and introduced me and I introduced myself. And it turned out that that gentleman was in charge of marketing for Porsche, for APEC. Okay. And he wanted to bring Ocean Grounds coffee and have Ocean Grounds be the coffee vendor for the Porsche Experience Center. Very cool. And that was our first foray into this B2B wholesale distribution model. So we really just stumbled across it.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Were you, as part of that experience, was the brand still quite visible? Because For any kind of young brand, that's an incredible partner to be associated with. So when you have that Portia experience, do you also, is it kind of very transparent that Ocean Grounds is the coffee as part of that experience?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

We did. They wanted to up their coffee game. So they could kind of use us as, you know, we're positioned as a premium high-end coffee provider. They've used us as a way to kind of improve their own image, right? To make sure that their guests knew that they were getting something premium.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

So not only did we supply the coffee, but we also did a number of events. And one that we love to do is called Coffee and Donuts, which has a little bit of a double entendre because, you know, when you drive the car in a fast way, you have to do donuts. So we would partner with Dunkin' Donuts, and we would bring Dunkin' Donuts and have a donut decorating activity for the kids, a coffee tasting activity for the parents, and then there would be track experiences. Nice. So it made for some really fun Saturday and

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Sunday. Yeah, I bet. That's very cool. Very cool. So where are we with the current business now? And then I'm interested in your role as a CEO and what that looks like day to day, but then how that links to the marketing strategy and how marketing fits in to what you're looking to do with the business as a whole. I realize I've just asked you three questions in one now, but let's start with just, it's a great story. What's the vision of the business at the moment and moving forward? So our

SPEAKER_02 8:20

goal is always

SPEAKER_01 8:20

to

SPEAKER_02 8:21

build a vertically integrated business, right? That's always been key to us. And after we began our wholesale distribution model, we were able to, and we found an opportunity to acquire a coffee roastery in Songjiang district. So that was kind of the next step up in the value chain. And that allowed us to control our quality and our product much better. Prior to them, we were doing pole roasting at an OEM facility. which was fine. But if we really wanted to be serious, if we really wanted to be a player, we had to have our own facility. So in 2020, we were able to acquire a coffee roastery there. And then from there, we wanted to continue vertically integrating. So the next step up is to buy coffee direct from Oregon. So we started buying coffees direct from farmers in Yunnan, direct from farms in Brazil and other countries. And then from there, we're actually getting ready to leave our own coffee farm in Yunnan. Oh, cool. So we'll be leasing a 250 to 300 move farm in Ku'er and that'll take us to the top of the value chain.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

That's super exciting. Very exciting. So then, to the next part of my question then, and I know this is probably no day is the same, but as the CEO, what's your role typically look like? It's really a few

SPEAKER_02 9:45

things. You know, one part is strategy. Yeah. Right. And really pushing the team toward that brand vertically integrated model. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of executing, but someone needs to keep their eyes out on tomorrow and the day after. And it's making sure that we're still focused on vertical integrating. That's not something you do overnight. Acquiring a factory, getting that roastery up and running, getting the farm going. That all takes a lot of advanced coordination and planning to bring it

SPEAKER_01 10:19

online. Especially with agriculture cycles in a farm, I guess. Harvests don't happen when you want them to. Harvests

SPEAKER_02 10:26

do not happen when you want them to happen. No, no. So the strategy piece is one side. Business development, obviously another. We work with a number of Fortune 500 companies, regional giants, domestic, famous domestic companies. So there's a lot of business development that I do. And then marketing. Marketing has always been my passion. And I studied marketing in college and And from when we started the business, you know, up until today, I've always been involved with marketing. I've always had a hand in marketing, guided marketing, and have made sure that, you know, I had my stamp on the marketing piece. So marketing has always been from the beginning, you know, an area where I've made

SPEAKER_01 11:08

sure to spend. Very cool. We're going to get into the marketing in just a second, because I think for you, you have this really exciting premium brand. The product is excellent. And I'm sitting here drinking it as we speak. So we have it. in our office so I'm not even we're familiar before we had this conversation and I do love the coffee so we'll talk a little bit about the marketing and the brand in just a second you mentioned how were the businesses now I think is it fair to say that some of those headwinds that you identified back when you were running the restaurants have kind of inspired the pivot and have led to where we are today so that challenge became an opportunity is that ugly What are some of the challenges? You mentioned some of the challenges about that vertical integration, but I'd just be interested in what are some of the challenges that you're facing at the moment and some of the opportunities as well?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Sure. It's a great question. And it's really interesting for a food and beverage business in China. China has such a deep and rich history, food history, going back thousands and thousands of years. And everyone has an opinion on food, right? And Everyone's kind of an expert on food. You see it in the office or even just when you're out at a restaurant, people always want to talk about the food and critique the food. And it's interesting because throughout all different aspects of society, experiencing good food and having that relationship with food is not just something for people who are wealthy. It's something that permeates all levels of society. Everybody has this strong and passionate relationship with food in China and has something to say about it. Right. So, you know, it's a very, it's a very interesting market for a food and beverage business to be in because you have this, this long history and you have a very, a very, very well-educated customer. Right. And you have a customer base that is not only educated, but their palate is so refined and so sensitive. Right. And they'll critique the food in ways that are meaningful and intentional and thoughtful. And that all translates into the customer base. customer base having a really high expectation for food and beverage products and services. The requirement, the standard is very, very high. Regardless of the price point, the standard is high. The thing that is interesting about coffee is that coffee is relatively new to China. If I asked you, what's Italian coffee culture? You'd say espresso. If I asked you, what's American coffee culture? say, drip coffee, the Americana drip coffee. If I ask somebody, what's Chinese coffee culture? Get 10 different responses, right? So it's both challenging and exciting because we're still figuring out what coffee is and what coffee means to Chinese consumers, right? And it's both challenging and exciting because as a coffee roastery, we are always and constantly innovating and developing. and bringing new products to market because the customers, they always want something new. Sure. They're always willing to try something new, which is awesome and exciting. People aren't stuck in, you know, I only drink this or I only drink that or I don't like this or I don't like that. They're saying, bring it on. We want to taste. We want to try, right? So it's very, very exciting, you know, to be in this market where we're always developing. The bar is real high and we're always innovating. And then from a marketing perspective, marketers, as marketers, we're We're always thinking about how we can tell those stories, right? And it's adapting these stories of origin, the stories of sustainability and social impact that coffee has, right? The stories of roasting the coffee and developing that perfect roast for the bean that are really fun for us marketers to tell here in China.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, for sure. So that links nicely then into, let's start off with, more of a marketing perspective. And I think the Ocean Grounds has got a really strong brand. And that's important because you talk about coffee as a relatively new experience in China, but it's incredible how fast different brands enter the market. You've got the old established players. You've got young upstarts. We've got people trying to incorporate new business models, like Luckin, kind of a manner which sort of revolutionized, not revolutionized, but really gave a step change into the experience of of purchasing the coffee. Then you've got all of the e-commerce platforms and the way that people access the products too. All of this makes it a really complex environment. So I think from a marketeer's point of view, brand and telling that story is really a significant thing. So how have you guys worked to try and make that an advantage for the business? What was the inspiration for the brand and why do you see the future of that going?

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So the Open Grounds brand has kind of an American origin story. We focus us on, you know, positioning ourselves as a, you know, California-born, Shanghai-raised coffee. That's very cool. I like that. So it's very much modern brand positioning, forward thinking, and that brand allows us to do different things with our roast profile, different blends. You know, we can import coffees from, you know, niche regions and they fit nicely under ocean grounds. We also, a few years ago, brought back an old, old brand, actually our very first first restaurant was named Ricci. We brought that brand back as a kind of an economy coffee brand. And that brand has much more of an Italian origin story. So that brand Ricci is positioned as, you know, traditional Italian coffee brand. And, you know, that brand focuses on much more or many more traditional style of coffee roasts, a little bit more darker, you know, focused on espresso based or espresso type preparation methods So between those two brands, we have something premium, high-end and modern. And then we have another brand that's a little more economical and traditional, right? And that allows us to capture different areas of the

SPEAKER_01 17:31

market. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

You know, I should also add that we have two instant coffee brands that we import from Indonesia, Indo Cafe, which is the largest and the number one instant coffee brand in Indonesia. And the second is Cloud9, which is a beautiful instant coffee brand also. So between those four brands, we're capturing a wide variety of coffee consumers.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Interesting. And kind of moving forward then, I guess you're still going to see the importance of how you adapt your marketing strategy. Have you got anything kind of interesting new developments that you see coming in marketing that you're excited to deploy for the brands or the business?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

For building the brand, you really focus on a few different things. The first is making sure that we are thought leaders. And we do that in a few different ways that target both B2C customers and B2B. So the first is we always want to participate in coffee fairs and coffee festivals all over China. And those are awesome ways for us to build brand and build relationships, coffee drinking consumers all over the country. The second is participating in trade shows, Hotel X, FHC. There's a number of different coffee shows. trade shows that we participate in throughout the year. And those are great places for us to communicate directly with B2B partners all over the country. And for hotelists and FHC, we'll participate in Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Shanghai expos. So we're really focused on building a national presence. And those trade shows give us a really nice opportunity to build brand.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

I guess the third piece is building brand on social media. And we do that on TikTok, Douyin, Dongshu, through our own platforms, on WeChat, in our own group chats, and then on the e-commerce platforms. Do you think, as a whole, does your industry market well? If you asked me that 10 years ago, I would say absolutely not. If you asked me five years ago, I'd say, eh, not really. But today, I'd say absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah. Is that motivated by competition and some of those startup businesses that we mentioned a little bit earlier? Or is it just as the consumer becomes more sophisticated? Or is it a bit of both? I

SPEAKER_02 20:01

think there's a few things. The consumer has become more sophisticated, which requires brands to market in more smart and savvy ways. The second thing is coffee investments in businesses have exploded over the past couple of years, right? Yeah. into new coffee businesses has just skyrocketed. And what that means is a greater level of competition. And what we found is there have been a lot of younger people in their 20s and early 30s building coffee businesses. And not just coffee shops, but these people are building businesses throughout the value chain. They're building roasting businesses. They're building green coffee trading businesses. They're running farms in Yunnan. And these people have are awesome marketers because they have such a unique perspective on the market, right? They've kind of seen it grow. And a lot of them are young and savvy and hip. And they have really unique and interesting angles for telling all those stories from origin to come. And I guess the last part is in China, we have so many different platforms to do so, right? So for a marketer, it's an awesome environment to... Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01 21:19

would second that. Then again, sort of linked to that discussion. I think this is really interesting because we've talked about some of the opportunities you have from the vertical nature of the business, moving into having your own farm, moving into the roastery previously. What sort of, are there any other big innovations that the company is looking at at the moment that you're looking to get some grips with or you're feeling into buy and buy?

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Well, you know, it's with coffee every year is different because every harvest is different. And when we talk about harvest, we're not talking about one coffee harvest. We're talking about coffee harvests all over the world, right? And as an agricultural product, crop from one year to the next often changes, right? So that means that we're always innovating, right? And we're always testing new coffees from all over the world. And it's almost like every harvest is like the first harvest, right? Because you can You kind of never know what you're going

SPEAKER_01 22:19

to get,

SPEAKER_02 22:19

right? And sometimes it requires you to adjust blends and, you know, to change your product plan and product strategy moving forward. So we're excited for the Brazil harvest coming up in a few months. So that'll be a big one. You know, Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world. So that harvest is very meaningful, both from an economical perspective, right? Because that'll kind of reset coffee prices globally. But also we have Brazil coffees in so many of our blends So, you know, figuring out what we're going to get out of this year's crop is going to impact next year's. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. Product planning. Yeah. Product development. Yeah. Then from there, it'll be getting the farm in Union off the ground. And we're excited really for, you know, really two or three things. You know, the first is operationally getting it up and running, integrating it into our business. The second is going to be getting the farm ready for the harvest that'll be happening next October, November, December. That's

SPEAKER_01 23:16

October, November, Okay. Right. So that'll

SPEAKER_02 23:19

be our first harvest. And then the third is communicating all the beautiful stories that are coming in, that are going to come out of the farm. Right. We're so excited to start marketing that. Yeah. And showing those stories, telling that, starting to tell our own art story. Yeah. Right. And tell stories from our own farm. So that'll be kind of the third piece that we're really excited

SPEAKER_01 23:39

about. Yeah. That's going to be fascinating. And again, from a marketing point of view, I think it's really refreshing that you've recognized that it's going to be a great thing. of the business and part of the business strategy, but also it's a really exciting time for your story as a business and as a brand as well. So as a marketeer, my eyes light up at stuff like that too. That's very cool. And it's interesting that you've recognized that as a business leader too. So obviously the farm is significant, but I'd like to just sort of start to bring things for the close by what's next. Where do you go once the farm is up and running and what's next for you? Thank you. It's a

SPEAKER_02 24:18

great question. So we've been in business for a while. We've been in business for about 15 years. And when we first got into business, it was very much an instant-dominated coffee market. And we participated in and we've led that shift from instant coffee to fresh coffee. And I guess we've kind of been waiting for this moment for so long. We've been in business for 15 years. And And really only been over the past couple of years that we are seeing consumption start to switch off in China. Now, just to throw a quick stat, coffee consumption in China is still very low. Even in first tier cities, you're really only talking about 20, 30 cups a year. Now, in a central business district, you could have an average of maybe 150, 200 cups a year. I

SPEAKER_01 25:12

think I'm doing that about a week.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

But when you compare that to... more advanced and more developed coffee markets, even in Asia, even our neighbors. There's still a huge gap in our consumption. So we've got this really interesting setup, this really interesting environment where you have customers who are eager, who are excited, and who are willing to drink coffee. That same customer base is pulling coffee brands, coffee roasters, coffee producers, and pushing them to say, we want to try new things. We're not willing to settle. Bring us everything you have. Bring us your best. We want to taste it all. We want to try it all. We want to learn about it all. So we've got the strong foundation. We've got these really eager customers. And now we have our business that'll be vertically integrated from 2025. And looking forward, this should be our prime execution years, right? Where we're really executing on an operation side, on a business development side, and of course on a marketing and a brand building and a storytelling side.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Fantastic. Greg, that's been awesome. I really appreciate you taking the time. I love doing these deep dives into a single industry with a business leader like yourself. Will you, once the farm is up and running and we've got a harvest under your belt and we're starting to tell those stories, will you come back on and do a follow-up piece with us? Because I think that would be a really valuable listen for our leaders as well. So I appreciate your time this time, but I'm asking if you'll do it again at some point in the future. Yeah, we should. If listeners want to reach out and get in touch with you, we'll put links to any kind of websites and social media stuff in the show notes. But if they do want to reach out, where's the best place to catch you?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

You can catch us on sinotaste.com. S-I-N-O-T-A-S-T-E.com. That's a good place to start. And any shows coming up that they can come and see you? There's FHC and HotelX coming up, but in the spring.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Okay. They're in Shanghai. All right. And we'll put some notes to that end as well. Greg, what Once again, appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on. And thank you everyone for listening. Great. Thanks, Stephen.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Thank you for listening to the Radical Global Marketing Podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed making it. Join us next time for more insight, best practice case studies, and shared experiences from some of the world's most radical global marketing leaders.