Slate Chocolate Milk Update | Shark Tank Season 11
Entrepreneurs Manny Lubin and Josh Belinsky pitched their beverage company during
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick overview of what happened to Slate after
Manny Lubin and Josh Belinsky appeared on
| Shark: | Result: |
| Kevin O’Leary | No offer |
| Rohan Oza | No offer |
| Lori Greiner | No offer |
| Barbara Corcoran | No offer |
| Mark Cuban | No offer |
Shark Tank Slate Update
- Entrepreneurs: Manny Lubin and Josh Belinsky
- Business: Nutritious chocolate milk alternative
- Ask: $400,000 for 10% equity
- Result: No deal
- Shark: None
Slate founders, Manny Rubin and Josh Belinsky gave a great presentation, but the sharks were less than impressed when they first tasted their chocolate milk alternative. The drinks come canned and are low-sugar, high-protein, and lactose-free.
Handcrafted to taste like your favorite milk chocolate shake, our flagship lactose free Classic Chocolate Milk is the original high protein Slate. Boost recovery with this delicious, muscle building keto friendly drink.
Further, the chocolate milk drinks come in several flavors, but none of them seem to be very appealing to the sharks. They use a process called ultra-filtration, which basically allows them to filter out the natural lactose sugars from milk.
This leaves them with a creamy, ‘better for you’, chocolate milk. Then, they pair this with a popular latte canning process, which ultimately gives them a unique end result.
Their product is also shelf-stable, so this makes shipping it easy and cost-effective. Each can only has 130 calories and 9 grams of sugar, which is three times less than a regular glass of chocolate milk.
Each can of the Slate milk is manufactured for $0.85, and will retail for $1.77. This equates to a 52% margin.
Unfortunately, the extremely high valuation doesn’t sit well with the sharks. To top it all off, Slate has no revenue, because they are still in the pre-sale stage.
In defense of the $4 million valuation, the guys say that they actually have a third partner, who was a food broker for 40 years. They say that he grew the largest brand of Greek yogurt from $140,000 in yearly sales, to $150 million in yearly sales.
Because of his experience, they believe that their company will also become wildly successful. This is what they’ve based their valuation on, but the sharks aren’t too thrilled with their answer.
Lori Greiner bows out because it is too early for her.
Kevin O’Leary hates the taste and doesn’t think it will go to market as it is. For this reason, he ultimately drops out.
Barbara Corcoran drops out too, because of the lack of sales, and no proof of concept on top of the crazy valuation.
Mark Cuban makes it clear that he doesn’t like the taste, so he also goes out.
This leaves guest shark Rohan Oza. He likes their energy, but his gut is telling him to pass. He’s the last shark out.
Manny and Josh are forced to leave without a deal, but what happens next for the company? Keep reading our Slate update to find out.
We have good news to share in our Slate update. As it turns out, Manny and Josh are doing much better than the sharks expected and we got the chance to chat with Manny about what’s happened since
“Slate is now sold in roughly 5,000 locations and has a full-time team of 30 employees,” Manny told us. “All of the products have since been reformulated since we filmed the episode.” The drinks now have 20g of protein and only 1g of sugar!
Manny continued, “For us, I think it’s a great reminder of how far we’ve come. We still have a long way to go, but since then we’ve just kept building and building.”
While we don’t have an exact revenue number for our Slate update, Manny and Josh have been able to establish some retail relationships and expand their online presence.
This has led to Slate becoming an official partner of the UFC. Further, it’s led to investments from Maxx Crosby, Duncan Robinson, Terence Mann, and more.
In 2023, the company has raised a total of $25 million, to help with national distribution efforts.
You can find drinks on the Slate website or in Whole Foods, Giant, Publix, and a ton of independent grocers, as well as on Amazon.
We’d like to thank Manny for giving us a Slate update and can’t wait to see what happens next!
Before you go, check out our other company updates from Season 11 Episode 23 here:
Don’t forget to stop by our Season 11 products page to find our other company updates from Season 11.
Kimberly is a writer for Shark Tank Recap. She has written episode summaries and updates across multiple seasons of Shark Tank, with a focus on complete and accurate information since 2021. She believes that getting the business aspects of each deal correct is extremely important for viewers and fans. Her favorite Shark Tank products are The Wobbles and Rocketbook!