In episode 490 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Yanni Hufnagel, founder and CEO of The Lemon Perfect Company, an organic lemon water brand. Listen in as Yanni discusses his unconventional career path, transitioning from a college basketball coach to a beverage entrepreneur (2:20). He describes the inspiration behind Lemon Perfect (3:10), growth strategies and recent significant milestones, including launching in Costco (7:00), and hiring Mary Lee, a seasoned marketer, as the brand's new chief marketing officer (8:45).

Additionally, Yanni shares his mindset as a former coach building a winning culture at Lemon Perfect (11:10), the challenges and strategies of building a brand in a highly competitive market dominated by giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi (13:40), and B2B customer relationships (15:15). Lastly, he discusses how Lemon Perfect is meeting the growing consumer demand for healthy products (17:00) and what he's focused on to continue brand growth in the future, including tightening the supply chain and ensuring product excellence (19:05).

Before starting Lemon Perfect, Yanni served as an assistant men’s college basketball coach, with stops at Nevada, California, Vanderbilt, Harvard, and Oklahoma. Yanni was widely considered one of the most charismatic recruiters in America, consistently lauded for signing nationally-ranked recruiting classes. In Yanni’s 10 years coaching college basketball, his teams reached the NCAA Tournament six times. While coaching at Nevada, Yanni began following a ketogenic diet plan that called for starting his day with freshly squeezed organic lemon water. Yanni found the process of squeezing lemons burdensome and the taste bland. He saw that his players were drinking vitaminwater® and Bai® and imagined that fusing the functional benefits of organic lemon water with delicious flavor could create a great-tasting and good-for-you beverage for everyone. The story of Lemon Perfect began.