John McKenna

Delivering the keynote address at The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) annual trade show last week in Las Vegas, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz related how Starbucks endured and eventually mitigated the effects of its recent troubles.

Feeding off the energy surrounding Expo West, Nutracon and Engredea posted record attendance last week in Anaheim. Engredea is the trade show section for supplier companies at Expo West, while Nutracon is the conference event for supplier companies that occurs during the two days before the trade show. Nutracon and Engredea drew over 220 exhibitors and 7,500 attendees.

Powdered drink formulations dominated the recent SupplySide West tradeshow, held October 11-14 in Las Vegas. Though often overshadowed by their RTD counterparts, manufacturers believe that powdered beverages – sometimes called “pre-beverages” – can offer distinct advantages when it comes to delivering novel ingredients. Accordingly they have long been a popular medium for suppliers seeking to showcase ingredients in custom beverages, particularly so at SupplySide West, which has its roots as a show for suppliers to the dietary supplement industry.…

Sometimes the best thing a package can do is get out of the way and show its contents. This approach has paid major dividends for those PET bottle manufacturers that have recently grabbed a significant share of the multi-serve juice container market from the from hitherto unchallenged carton suppliers.

The BevNET.com Company Directory, which has listings for almost 2,000 companies that service the industry (including suppliers, services, legal, investors, and distributors), has been given a makeover. While we’ve added some new features to help increase visibility for the companies that are listed (such as links to their presences on Twitter and Facebook), the biggest change is the addition of user reviews. Our goal is to create a place where industry professionals can go to learn what kinds of experiences, both good and bad, their peers have had with the countless vendors that are in this space. That said, we highly encourage you to find your company’s listing and make sure that the information is current — and we hope that you’ll ask your customers to write a review on your company’s page. Click the link below to view the Company Directory now.

BevNET recently had the chance to attend the Supply Side East conference, which was held in Secaucus, NJ at the Meadowlands Exposition Center from May 2-4. More than 3,000 global food and beverage, cosmetic and personal care, and dietary supplement executives attended to examine the wares of more than 200 companies. Read on to view photos and hear about the trends of SupplySide East 2001.

Best known as a trade show for all-natural consumer products, Natural Products Expo West (which ended last weekend) also dedicates a section of its floor-space to those business-to-business supplier companies who sell to natural brand manufacturers. Hitherto known SupplyExpo, this year the supply section of the show was officially rebranded as engredea.…

Here’s a free look at today’’s BevNET New Product Insider. Featuring new beverage brands and line extensions, New Product Insider is delivered via email alerts exclusively to paid subscribers. The concept is simple — every time BevNET finds a new product, we alert subscribers via New Product Insider. Subscribers learn about these new beverages before they are posted on our website, sometimes more than a month in advance. Subscribers can expect 200-300 Insider alerts per year.…

For over 15 years, BevNET has been THE place for new beverage launches. We know how vital this new product information is to your business, whether you are a supplier looking for new leads, a beverage company staying on top of the competition, or a distributor looking for new brands. Now, through BevNET’s “New Product Insider” subscription, we’re giving you the chance to get a jump on new product news.…

Pack Expo took place this week in Chicago at the McCormick Convention Center. The annual event is produced by the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI). The show covers packaging of all types, including beverages.

Lately, the beverage industry has been under pressure to lower its carbon footprint. Product packaging often receives a disproportionate amount of scrutiny relative to the product it contains or the processes that bring that packaged product to consumers.  The effect of this scrutiny has rippled back down the supply chain, resulting in an industry-wide effort among suppliers to provide greener packaging.

As one exhibitor explained, good…

SupplySide West took place last week in Las Vegas at The Venetian Hotel and The Sands Expo and Convention Center. The event, which bills itself as “the world's largest event for healthy and innovative ingredients,” drew over 1,000 exhibitors. BevNET visited dozens of ingredient suppliers and beverage formulators at the show (see PHOTO GALLERY…).

While many of the ingredients featured at the show are lab-formulated, dietary supplement-grade compounds, others are raw ingredients such as fruit concentrates, purees and juices. One such raw ingredient promoted strongly at this year’s show was maqui. Maqui is a wild-harvested berry from Chile which

The Institute of Food Technologists’ (IFT) annual tradeshow and conference took place in Chicago from July 17-21 at McCormick Place. The event is the largest annual gathering of supplier and food scientists in North America.  The sample and prototype beverages served at IFT offer a glimpse of the near beverage future. New ingredients, novel flavors, and new beverage technology were on display at many of the 1,000+ exhibits. Photo gallery from IFT10…

The refinement of stevia-sweetened beverages continues to be foremost among the many technical challenges currently being tackled by the industry’s food scientists. Approved in late 2008 by the

When Marty Snyder, Business Director for Flavorman, returned home from BevNET LIVE earlier this month, he did so with a fresh sense of purpose and list of to-do’s. One of the first things he did was invite BevNET to visit Flavorman at its Louisville, KY headquarters. We love to see beverage creation at work, so we gladly accepted their invite.

Founded by David Dafoe over 19 years ago, Flavorman is still known to many as Pro-Liquitech. The company officially changed its name to Flavorman in 2010. Known by the slogan “The Beverage Architects,” Flavorman takes beverage ideas and molds them…

PHOTO GALLERY…
Beverages were a hot topic at SupplySide East, April 26 to 28 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ. BevNET contributed to the beverage focus at the event by organizing and moderating a panel of experts on the topic of shot beverages, featuring Brent Sonnek-Schmelz, chief zen officer of RelaxZen, and Bob Occhifinto, founder and president of NVE Pharmaceuticals.
BevNET’s John McKenna set the stage for Occhifinto and Sonnek-Schmelz by describing the importance of shots as an beverage category. Careful not to pigeon-hole the category as only relating to energy formulations, McKenna explained that shots are now

See the photo gallery…
SupplyExpo took place from March 12-14 at the Anaheim Convention Center. SupplyExpo is part of Natural Products Expo West, which attracted over 55,000 attendees/exhibitors to this year’s event. Over 140 SupplyExpo exhibits were set up at the event primarily to attract the hundred of natural product manufacturers that were exhibiting in the adjacent halls.
Natural no-cal sweeteners were in the spotlight at SupplyExpo and Expo West. The emergence of Stevia-based sweeteners in 2009 such as Reb-A has permitted a wave of reduced-calorie beverages access to the natural foods sector which hitherto had very few viable all

Stevia-sweetened concept beverages were in abundant supply at SupplySide West, held in Las Vegas from Nov 11 to 14 at the Venetian & Sands Expo. SupplySide West is an annual trade show showcasing the ingredients that are used in the beverage, food and dietary supplement industries.
Many of the beverage samples at the show featured rebaudioside A (the most common sweetener derived from the Stevia plant) either by itself or in conjunction with another natural sweetener. Still relatively new as a beverage ingredient, reb-A continues to present a formulation challenge. In some instances, formulators are adjusting concentrations of reb-A in…

-Check out our photo gallery …from IFT09
BevNET was on hand at this year’s IFT Show to sample the many cutting cutting-edge beverage concepts on display. IFT09, the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting & Food Expo, took place from June 6-9 in Anaheim, CA.
Getting the most play at the show was Rebaudioside A (Reb-A). A zero-calorie, naturally-derived sweetener, Reb-A was recognized by the Food Drug Administration as Generally Recognized and Safe and Effective (GRAS) in December of 2008; giving rise to a pile of new product launches including Trop50, vitamin water 10, and All Sport Zero.
Reb-A some

BevNET.com’s coverage is sponsored by Checkbox FieldTrak, an easy to use solution for managing the sales activities of your beverage sales team. Learn more

Photo Gallery >>…
Over 300 exhibitors and 4,000 attendees gathered at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas from October 20-23 for InterBev 2008. The event was put on by the American Beverage Association (ABA) and the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA).
Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent gave the keynote address at the show, and used the opportunity to address the challenges facing the beverage industry. Referring to those challenges as “headwinds”, Kent admitted that “today

BY JOHN CRAVEN, BEVNET.COM EDITOR
The 2008 Expo East Show took place at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from October 15-18, showcasing over 100 beverage companies and their brands. The diversity of new brands at the show was remarkable.
Photo Gallery (116 photos) >>
Video Gallery (64 videos) >>
Best of Show:

Steaz  – [VIDEO INTERVIEW]… Steaz sampled their new line-up of Organic Iced Teaz. Packaged in 16 oz. cans, the teas are the first full line of organic and fair trade certified iced tea. The six-product line-up in includes four green teas (Peach, Unsweetened Lemon, Blueberry/Pomegranate/Acai, Mint), White

View our photos from the show floor!…
Although BevNET didn’t make it to hear Senator McCain’s address on Monday morning, we did walk the exhibit floor on Tuesday, the fourth and final day of the 2008 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show. Held May 17-20, at McCormick Place in Chicago, the NRA Show featured 2,000+ exhibiting companies and 70,000 attendees and visitors. Now in its 89th year, the show is the largest gathering of restaurant, foodservice and lodging professionals in North America.
Over 30 beverage companies exhibited at the event. Most use the show to interact with foodservice distributors and

Sponsored by Shock Coffee

The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) annual tradeshow took place in Atlanta, Georgia between November 6-9. Due to the importance of ready-to-drink beverages in the convenience channel, NACS is one of the largest collection of beverage exhibitors during the year. BevNET’s coverage of the show is sponsored by Shock Coffee, makers of Shock Blended Coffee Drinks and Shock Hyper-Caffeinated Coffee. Visit their web site at http://www.shockcoffee.com… to learn more.

@@img1VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY…
The biennial tradeshow for the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) took place this week in Las Vegas at the Bally’s & Paris casinos between Sept 30 and Oct 2. The NBWA is made up of 2,750 licensed independent beer distributors throughout the US.
The 3,700 attendees at the show were primarily distributors from member companies of the NBWA. The exhibits were a broad range of products/services targeted toward beer distributors. Over 20 non-alcoholic beverage companies were among the exhibitors. In recent years, beer distributors have become a vital link in the non-alcoholic beverage distribution system.

@@img1 VIEW THE PHOTO GALLERY …
New beverage launches at Expo East, perhaps more than in recent memory, pushed the boundaries of innovation and novelty. Some came from overseas; others owe their roots to Yankee innovation. Among the many new drinks, we discovered a new fruit juice, a beer-like carbonated drink, drinks with billions of bacteria in them , a smoothie made from a grain whose name begins with a “Q”, and soda made from a cactus.
BevNET’s coverage of the 2007 Expo East show coverage on BevNET is sponsored by LIV Natural, an all natural sports drink available in Orange,

View the 2007 IFT Photo Gallery…
 
Serving up a hefty dose of flavor to help the health go down, exhibitors at this week’s Foodsmarts IFT 2007 – the annual meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists – clearly demonstrated a growing movement toward increasing the health benefits consumers derive from their food and drink.
 
Nowhere was that clearer at the Chicago event than at the tables of flavor and ingredient suppliers who serve the beverage community. At Foodsmarts, there aren’t many labels or brand names in evidence, but the functional selling points touted by so many beverage marketers,

View the Photo Gallery…
@@img1The 2007 FMI Show, held May 6-8 in Chicago, showcased over 70 beverage companies and their brands. Beverage exhibits could be found on the FMI show floor, as well as at the adjoining Fancy Food and All Things Organic shows which were co-located with FMI at McCormick Place.
Water brands and children’s beverages were among the best represented categories at the show, while energy drinks were few and far between. Pepsi was notably absent, however, Coke was there en force introducing its new line-up of Plus brands.
Hint was busy showing off its newly repackaged line-up