As Editor-in-Chief of BevNET, Jeff Klineman oversees the organization's reporting across all of its web sites, as well as BevNET Magazine. Jeff also plans, curates, and hosts the BevNET Live and NOSH Live conferences. Jeff previously worked as a newspaper reporter for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, the Boston TAB and the Metrowest Daily News, and has freelanced for publications like Slate, Boston Magazine, Self, George, Commonwealth, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. A frequently-cited expert on the beverage industry, Jeff has also twice been named in Forbes as one of the 25 Most Influential when it comes to Consumer and Retail Companies.
Now that it’s bottled and available – for now, pretty much only in Boston, via Blue Coast distributing, but soon to roll out in New York – the company is looking for a full-time CEO to run the business.
Although there were mockups and flavors – even sampling -- and an accompanying bubbly giddiness at the Honest Tea Expo East booth, there was no confirmation that the brand will be rolling out a line of carbonated soft drinks.
You’d think Carl Sweat, the hard-charging CEO of FRS, would have it easy by now. Strong investors, a dynamite functional additive, popular endorsers and clever marketing have been wrapped together into a very cold-box-friendly package. But the company is still fighting it out every day, trying to convince consumers that the quercetin compound that powers the product is worth its sometimes challenging taste and its hard-to-define health benefit.
The Healthy Brands Collective Corp. has acquired Living Harvest Foods, a hemp products company that makes a leading brand of hemp milk, Tempt.
Marketing whiz Matthew Kahn, who worked closely with Glaceau marketing chief Rohan Oza in the key growth years immediately preceding the company's eventual sale to the Coca-Cola Co., Inc., is moving into a similar role at Heineken, where he will be the new VP of Marketing for Portfolio Brands.
Talk about piling on. During the same week that the New York City Board of Health passed its ban on serving jumbo sodas, a pair of developments in two other closely watched social and environmental causes are affecting the Coca-Cola Co., including calorie counts in fast food chains and a battle over Genetically Modified Organisms.
Sparkling probiotic drink KeVita has closed a round of financing. The brand is touted as a less-vinegary but still probiotic beverage co-founded by nutritional consultant Chakra Earthsong Levy and winemaker Bill Moses.
Ecuadorian energy blend Runa received a little stimulation itself recently in the form of a $3 million round of financing from a variety of investors, company co-founder Dan MacCombie confirmed to BevNET on Friday.
Here's a win for former Red Bull honcho-turned Big Red owner Gary Smith, who managed to get Big Red into Pepsi Bottling Ventures' North Carolina markets starting in July.
Expo East kicks off on Sept. 20 in Baltimore, and when it does it will be accompanied by the debut of a year-long research initiative, New Hope 360’s Next Report. BevNET had a chance to speak with New Hope editor Carlotta Mast about some of the trends that are particularly applicable to the beverage category.
The private equity company, which manages investments for the family office of a large German private label manufacturer, has made its third beverage investment in less than a year, adding fledgling premium soda brand SIPP to a group that also includes Cheribundi and Balance Water.
Remember that request for information from a state attorney general we wrote about not too long ago? According to the Wall Street Journal -- which cited unnamed sources -- the probe was initiated by New York's attorney general, Erik Schneiderman.
Eric Skae, who stepped down last year as the head of New Leaf Brands, the tea and juice company he started and ran for several years, has re-surfaced with a new beverage business consulting practice.
J. Andrew Guard, a BevNET employee who had previously worked for OWater’s Tom First as Operations Manager, is returning to the beverage business. Guard is taking an operations position at Purity Organics, a portfolio company that works closely with First and is backed by investment from First’s new employer, First Beverage Group, which was started by investor Bill Anderson.
