Six beverage startups emerged from a field of 12 contestants to secure a spot in tomorrow’s final round of New Beverage Showdown 28 at BevNET Live Winter 2024, presented by Coca-Cola North America New Revenue Streams.
Tuesday’s final will feature Dappy non-alcoholic functional beverage, Passion Joy sparkling passion fruit beverage, Melo sparkling kava drink, Guinep non-alcoholic cocktail, Grind with Gratitude performance water and THC-infused seltzer, and Recoup organic sparkling prebiotic drink.
The finalists were selected from a group of 12 competitors that also included Fruga fruit super soda, Mas Energy, OoMee marine plant beverage, oHy sparkling water, Neptune electrolyte water, and Ringa holistic hydration. Each entrepreneur had two minutes to pitch their brand to the panel of judges.
The judges for the semifinal round included Mike Schneider, CMO of BevNET; Eric Schnell, founder of Beyond Brands; Corey Nicely, cooler category manager at Pilot Company; and Jessica Qussar, EVP of marketing and account services at Suite 9C.
Looking towards the final round, the judges encouraged finalists to address market opportunities and scalability.
“They’ve got to identify the size of the next five years, where this goes, and how big it goes. Are they just sourcing volume from other brands on shelf, or are they bringing new customers into the stores and the categories,” said Schnell.
Tune into BevNET.com tomorrow, Dec. 10, to watch the final round of the competition live, starting with part one at 11 a.m. PT and part two at 1:30 p.m. PT. The New Beverage Showdown 28 winner will be announced at 3:15 p.m. at the closing of BevNET’s annual winter conference.
In addition to much-deserved bragging rights, the victor of the competition will walk away with an industry awareness-building package valued at $10,000 and join a cohort of previous New Beverage Showdown Winners, including Pretty Tasty, Calexo, Parch, SANS, Plink!, Hiyo and Cann, among others.