BevBlog

Economic commentators frequently point to thriving dollar store sales as a symptom of a suffering economy, and the surging supply chain that carries energy drinks to those stores may suggest coming bad news for producers of caffeine-laden beverages.

Jon Auspitz, president of Wham Food and Beverage Company, said his company buys food and beverage products nearing their expiration dates at fire-sale prices, and then sells them to charities or discount stores.

“Basically, when they have nowhere to turn, when they were going to have to pay to destroy their product, they have us pay them for the product and get it out of their place and fill a hungry belly somewhere,” Auspitz said.

He only deals with large orders, he said – at least a truckload – and in the current economy, his company has performed well.

“Our customer base has grown,” Auspitz said. “If anything, the challenge can be supply.”

But, he said, that’s not true with energy drinks. There’s almost more supply than he can deal with – and not just from small startups that shutter their offices.

“There’s more energy out there than anyone can handle,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you how many brands there are. It’s crazy.”

For business reasons, Auspitz declined to name any of the beverage companies that he works with, but said some of the big energy drinks brands “just have way too much [product.]”

“We’re talking hundreds of thousands of cases,” he said.

While the energy drink market continues to grow – up 13.5 percent September 2008 according to Information Resources Inc. – that growth has slowed significantly. IRI reported that the category expanded at more than double that rate – 34.4 percent – in the 12 months ending on July 15, 2007.

While those numbers and Auspitz’s experience suggest that energy drink firms haven’t calibrated their production to match moderating demand, he offered advice to companies that suddenly find themselves with more product than they know what to do with.

“Really, what you should do is go exhaust any avenues you have, and if you can’t move it, give us a call back,” he said. “You have to do the best you can for yourself. With us, you will lose.”

Looking for a real estate deal? Talk to Rockstar Energy – or at least its CEO, Russell Weiner.

Maybe it’s due to the flagging housing market. Maybe it’s due to the distribution deal Rockstar distributor Coca-Cola signed with Monster, but, either way, Weiner is selling his California home for the low, low discount price of just under $3 million.

Okay, you’re probably not going to find that kind of change by returning soda cans, but the Los Angeles Times reports that that price tag for the elevator-equipped 4,414-square-foot home just above the Sunset Strip fell by $2 million.

Interesting that his “must sell” price appeared only weeks after Coca-Cola announced its deal with Monster, but Weiner’s misfortune could be your gain.

If you’re the lucky millionaire bidder, you’ll get four bedrooms, four bathrooms, city views, a roof deck, a bridge to a pool and three fireplaces. If you’re real lucky, maybe Weiner will even throw in a palate of Rockstar.

Logan Gola’s Blow Energy Drink Mix got exactly the kind of attention that the BevNET staff was afraid it would.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Mary Bono-Mack – while standing next to a representative from the Betty Ford Clinic – urged Gola to pull his product from the market.

She also called him a “scumbag.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Energy drinks have been nailed with a number of negative health claims, but this is a new one on us. Now they’re on the hook for being bad for your teeth–even worse than soda.

While it’s been said for years that acidic drinks erode your teeth, recent research by the Academy of General Dentistry discovered that some drinks are better at minimizing the effects of that acid than others – and energy drinks apparently do the least.

Note: We did our due-diligence, and all signs say that the AGD is a legitimate group The New York Times online archive listed the group in obituaries as far back as 1966.

To see the AGD’s full release, click the link below.

Read the rest of this entry »

This video appeared on CollegeHumor.com. Keep an eye out for Crunk and the Crunk truck.

Blow Energy Drink Mix could suffer the same fate that torpedoed the first launch of Cocaine Energy Drink. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened an investigation into the white powder, saying the company advertises the product as an “alternative to illicit street drugs” – the same justification they used when they asked Redux Beverages to pull Cocaine from the shelves.

The Smoking Gun has the full story here.

A Pennsylvania man has one-upped the Red Bull Bandits of Illinois. William Redfern, 37, of Allentown, Pa. admitted to stealing cases of vitamin water and Monster energy drink that Davis Beverage officials estimated to be worth a total of about $100,000.

His score dwarfs the paltry $50,000 of Red Bull the Illinois pair stole at gunpoint in March of 2006 when they hijacked a pair of Red Bull trucks.

But Redfern had an advantage. He worked at the beverage warehouse and culled his haul over the course of several months, selling the cases from his trunk for $10 each. A judged arraigned Redfern Wednesday and released him on $10,000 unsecured bail, but maybe soon he’ll share a cell with the Red Bull Bandits.

For more on Redfern, click here.

For more on the Red Bull Bandits, click here.

Columnist and Radio and TV commentator Glenn Sacks is disgusted. He’s fired up. He’s urging his readers to call Pepsi and complain – not because of the scantily clad woman dancing in the SoBe Life Water commercial (not to mention the farting lizards) or the corpulent, bare-chested mechanic powering a car via his nipples in their fourth quarter Amp Energy commercial, but because a special effects team inflicted on-screen pain to pop star Justin Timberlake (speaking of nipples) in the second quarter’s Pepsi Stuff commercial.

The commercial featured Timberlake flying across a busy street and bashing into a mailbox post on his way to a young, attractive female Pepsi drinker who sucks dry her bottle of Pepsi in order to earn points to buy a Justin Timberlake mp3.

When Timberlake arrived, a flat panel TV crashed over his head and knocked him out. The girl’s father chugged his own share of Pepsi to earn the points for that.

“I understand slapstick humor but this was way over the line,” noted Sacks. “Timberlake is in severe pain in the ad, and gets painfully whacked in the nuts on three separate occasions. All because some pretty girl is sucking him in by drinking her Pepsi.”

To which reply: yeah, something about this definitely sucks.

To see Sacks’ column, click here.

To see the ad, click here.

Britney Spears, rushed to the hospital this morning and placed on something called “psychiatric hold,” did something vaguely normal last night. She bought a case of Red Bull.

America’s favorite train-wreck-in-action bought the case while driving an apparently rented Mercedes coupe around Beverly Hills, feigning a British accent, and wearing a bright pink wig. As it was L.A., even that part of the story was vaguely normal. Still, psychiatric hold is a bit out of the ordinary.

Of course, the paparazzi followed.

For pictures and more information, click here for X17 Online, or here for Gossip Girls.

The eyes of the world turn to Iowa today, and if any of those eyes belong to Red Bull distributors, chances are they won’t be contributing to the presidential campaign of one candidate, former Senator John Edwards.

Edwards, a former 12-pack-a-campaign trail-day Diet Coke drinker, gave up caffeine after the 2004 election. Perhaps that’s not the best idea if you’re planning on pushing through an uninterrupted 36-hour “marathon for the middle class” at the close of the Iowa Caucus campaign, as Edwards did, but maybe it makes it all the more admirable.

Or, if you’re in the energy drink camp, it might make it all the more foolish. Watch this video from an Edwards press bus visit and you’ll see that the sleep-deprived-but-chipper candidate pulls no punches when it comes to his favorite — and least favorite — beverages.

“Red Bull? That stuff’s nasty,” he told the reporters, who had attempted to offer him some.