Jeffrey Klineman

For those of you who dream nightly about this kind of thing – and yes, the BevNET crew is part of that group, don’t you doubt it – we recently got some spectacular news. Symphony IRI Group, the company that provides our awesome brand sales data, has updated its information to include Wal-Mart.

These attempts to make over the pedestrian soda category with highbrow products seem to come every year, making for a diverse set of companies for retailers and distributors to consider. The entrepreneurs wouldn’t mind the consideration – it’s tough out there, they say, when you’re competing with the Cokes of the world. But things are starting to turn…

With about six weeks to go before a scheduled appeals decision concerning the Federal Trade Commission in the agency’s false advertising claims complaint against POM Wonderful, the agency — and the companies it regulates — may soon have a good handle on the kinds of evidence it needs to substantiate scientific claims, according to a legal blogger.

While energy drinks have received a considerable amount of scrutiny in recent months, mostly from individuals concerned that the products are unsafe for children, it’s the sale of Marley’s Mellow Mood at a Holmdel, N.J. middle school that has a school vending agency in hot water, after some students fell ill after consuming the product.

The Coca-Cola Co., Inc. completed its fast-moving courtship of the dairy protein drink Core Power, bringing former Coke employee Steve Jones’ two-year-old brand into the fold.

5-Hour Energy is disputing that its product played a role in any fatality, saying that it was nevertheless required to tell the FDA about the deaths — and that it had fulfilled its statutory duties by doing so.

Kim Jeffery has announced that he will be leaving the top spot at Nestle Waters North America as of Feb. 1 to become non-executive chairman. He will be succeeded by Tim Brown, President and CEO of Nestle Canada.

Here’s the issue: GNC is a well-known retailer, but the process of rolling a beverage brand licensed from GNC into other stores presented a bit of a design problem for Shadow Beverage and Snacks, the company that licensed the right to develop the drinks. To begin with, there’s complexity – the company envisioned three kinds of products—an enhanced water, a sports drink, and a protein drink – covering both the average, aspirational grocery consumer and the highly involved athletic achiever.

It went unnoticed last week, but fast-growing BluePrint — which makes raw juices and direct-to-consumer juice cleanse products — has been scooped up by natural foods conglomerate Hain Celestial. Hain did not disclose the amount of money it was paying for BluePrint. Hain Celestial CEO Irwin Simon called BluePrint “an innovative leader.” Huss declined comment to BevNET, saying through a spokesman that the deal was not yet finalized.

Lady Gaga’s manager, Troy Carter, announced that he was launching Pop Water, a low-calorie soft drink with famed fashion photographer Terry Richardson as its design director. Activate Drinks co-founder Burke Eiteljorg is also attached to the project, bringing beverage industry knowledge and contacts to the team.

Arnold Greenberg, one of three friends who started the new age beverage revolution with the introduction of Snapple drinks, died on Friday, according to an obituary in the New York Times. It was known that he had been battling cancer for some time.

Kids are used to hearing they need to clean up their rooms. Now drinks aimed at kids are cleaning up their ingredients. It’s part of a broader cleanup of American lifestyles. Particularly in the CPG arena, there’s a growing awareness that the earlier the life stage, the easier it is to create a natural or organic foods consumer. And the kids themselves are aware, as well…

In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida wrote about the function that cities have had in the rapid growth of an economy based on creativity. So how does that relate to the beverage business? Not necessarily directly – after all, much of the beverage industry is outsourced to factories that manufacture either centrally or regionally and then redistribute their production to wider areas. But on an entrepreneurial level there is an interesting relationship.

BevNET Live will feature an opportunity for entrepreneurs to check out their ideas with the experienced eye of noted designer Ian McLean, who will be on hand to answer questions and analyze proposed designs in a unique “workshop” format.

A Texas man has filed a class-action lawsuit against Vital Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the makers of VPX Redline, claiming the product made him sick and was marketed deceptively. Redline, an energy drink known for having extremely high concentrations of caffeine, also contains a wide variety of ingredients beyond caffeine-containing compounds, including Yohimbine, 5-HTP, evodiamine, tyrosine, and vinpocetine.

Faced with a drumbeat of negative publicity relating to revelations that the FDA has reports of five deaths associated in some way with the consumption of Monster Energy since 2009, the company has issued a statement denying its products played a role in the death of 14 year-old Anais Fournier last December.

Since moving into the 16 oz. can style that is more typical of the energy drink category, the brand has received not just increased attention from Whole Foods, but also nationwide approval in Kroger for all six of its SKUs (four zero-calorie energy waters and two 100-calorie juice blends), as well as accounts in Ralph’s, Wegman’s, Jewel-Osco and many others.

Armstrong has been an investor and member of the board of directors for the company, as well as a spokesman and “FRS Ambassador” for several years. He resigned from the board of directors yesterday. According to several reports, Armstrong will no longer be used to help market the products.

Nestle doesn’t take incursions onto its watery turf lightly, so getting strong play at the NWNA booth at NACS was a relative newcomer: Resource. The company has tasked a pair of branding aces (pulling them in from runaway success Pure Life and stalwart eco-brand Keeper Springs) with the unenviable chore of establishing Nestle as a player in the Smartwater crowd, and they are using Resource (labeled with a Smartwater-like lowercase “r”) as the brand to do it.

Call it part of a larger movement to get healthier beverages into the beverage assortments on convenience store shelves. Zico Coconut Water and Core Power, a protein beverage, will both be moving into Coke’s large-scale national distribution system next year. Zico, which is well-known and is partially owned by Coke’s Venturing and Emerging Brands Group (VEB), will move onto the trucks in February, according to Paul Beaupre, a group director at Coca-Cola Refreshments.

San Francisco, CA (October 9th, 2012) – HINT Inc., maker of all-natural, great tasting unsweetened essence water, announced it has been selected as the official water sponsor of the 11th Annual Austin City Limits music festival. The event, which will occur October 12th – 14th in Zilker Park in downtown Austin, TX, is set to feature the hottest acts in music with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Black Keys, Jack White and Florence + The Machine all serving as headliners. HINT Water will be available to the projected 210,000 fans during the weekend through…

It’s not so much been a long time coming as it is a long way for them to come, but Red Bull has finally announced that it was going to move three flavored line extensions from overseas into U.S. markets. The company says it will unveil the three tomorrow at the opening of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show in Las Vegas.

Count the Sambazon team among those organic beverage entrepreneurs — including Mama Chia’s Janie Hoffman and Honest Tea’s Seth Goldman — who are publicly supporting Proposition 37, which would force companies using Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to label their products as such.

FRS recently cut a significant number of positions (albeit fewer than 20) as it realigns itself to transition from a sales and marketing model supported significantly via PepsiCo’s warehouse division to one that is staffed by brand incubation house L.A. Libations.

Beverage marketers discovered the produce section more than a decade ago, and produce buyers went along with them, knowing that the margins those products offered made the space investment worthwhile. The prices it could command, the prominent positioning, the lack of slotting and the familiarity with fast-expiring products made the section a natural for the fresh squeezed, lightly processed, high-turnover juices that emerged in the late 1990s.