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.

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.

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.