Roughly a year after being acquired by SOURCE Global, aluminum packaged spring water brand Proud Source is hoping a new distribution pact with New York powerhouse Dora’s Naturals will get its increasingly national business flowing at the start of 2025.
This past year has been about “righting the ship” and priming the company for future growth, explained chief sales and marketing officer Michael Boyd earlier this month. That started shortly after Boyd arrived at the Idaho-based company last summer, having picked up significant category experience during a four-plus year stint at Fiji Water that concluded in 2021. Several other Fiji vets have joined him since, including former sales manager Scott Church, who joined Proud Source as VP head of retail last October.
From there, Proud Source has been adding manufacturing capacity in the form of two additional bottling plants, which have in turn fueled expanded distribution beyond its Pepsi network-serviced accounts on the West Coast. Proud Source has picked up DSDs like Jack Hillard in Texas and CoreMark and Pure Beverages in the Midwest, but all roads now lead to New York City, a “critical market” where the brand has aligned with Dora’s Naturals.
That’s where Boyd’s time running marketing at longtime Dora’s partner GT’s Kombucha also comes in handy, as the distributor’s owner Cyrus Schwartz — who now has more warehouse space to fill — noted at BevNET Live this month.
Proud Source’s experience over the past 12 months is influencing strategy for 2025; Boyd specifically praised the brand’s 16 oz. “Made in America” cans as “the next big evolution” within the business. That value-minded packaging — a particularly popular format for water since first championed by Liquid Death — has been a “huge success” that helped open the doors at large format stores like Kroger (where 8-packs have gained a foothold in center store) and convenience outlets like Qwik Trip. The 16 oz tall boys complement its existing 12 oz. cans.
“The biggest thing is as we’ve expanded and looked at the way the category is growing, there’s a huge opportunity to gain new consumers and drive trial with the can packaging,” Boyd explained.
That doesn’t mean that Proud Source is backing away from its original 25 oz aluminum bottle format; rather, it’s going bigger, with a one liter size developed with Trivium Packaging set to debut next year. Distribution strategy for the bottles and cans will run “parallel,” with the latter seen as key to unlocking club channel opportunities; tests with Costco and Sam’s Club are on the books.
As promising as those may be, there’s more than a few Americana-themed canned waters with the same idea as Proud Source; the latest, Free Bird, just launched this month. Yet what Proud Source does uniquely possess is Sky Water, a new water brand built around technology that captures water vapor from the atmosphere and collects it in liquid form. That potentially revolutionary process was the centerpiece of Proud Source’s acquisition by SOURCE Global last March, but so far Sky Water has only existed in theory. With the first 3,000 panels of what will be a 25,000-panel “water farm” now in place, Boyd is bullish that Sky Water will be dropping in 2025.
“I love Proud Source – the brand, the ethos and everything that it stands for. But Sky Water is really the reason why we’re all here,” said Boyd. “It’s the opportunity to be a part of something that has potentially to be revolutionary for the category.”
More Distribution News:
- Seven Teas is partnering with Power Full Energy Distribution to launch its canned teas into Canada, as well as expanding its business across the U.S.
- SoCal kombucha brewer Better Booch is now launching in Safeway stores in Northern Calif. and Nevada.
- Low-alc spirits brand Quarter Proof is rolling into Total Wine & More stores in Florida.