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.
As part of my involvement with a local community-based food business incubator, I have been asked to spend time mentoring a small beverage company, Boston Chai Party. Even better, the founders have been kind enough to allow me to write about what we're doing along the way.
At NACS 2017 in Chicago, BevNET editor-in-chief Jeffrey Klineman spoke to CEO Remmy Castillo about how the company’s growth strategy, discussing how Moonshine is building out its employee roster with industry veterans to strengthen the internal infrastructure and “put the right people in place” for success.
Following a report on Wednesday that Talking Rain and its former CEO, Kevin Klock, had been named in a lawsuit alleging that Klock had sexually harassed an employee in March, and that the company had retaliated against her even after Klock had left the company, COO Chris Hall told BevNET there was no culture problem at the sparkling water company during a brief talk at the just-concluded National Association of Convenience Stores show this week in Chicago.
A letter posted on the company's web site today explained that the company was shutting down due to the infrastructure challenges in "creating an effective manufacturing and distribution system for a nationwide consumer base."
Sports drink brand Roar Beverages announced a partnership with incubator L.A. Libations; Blossom Water picked up new placement in 750 grocery stores; Big Easy Bucha lands new distribution at Publix; Icelandic Glacial signs deal for distribution in China.
In terms of setting up direct-to-consumer marketplaces, creating “full basket” solutions with Amazon Fresh, and simply providing a place for customers to search by keywords for specific products, the e-commerce titan has begun to exert an outsized influence in the ways consumers shop.
In a deal that’s shaking the shopping experience for consumers, retailers, and food and beverage companies, Amazon’s scooping up of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion on Friday has hardened talk of large-scale disruption in the way consumers buy their groceries.
BevNET’s Jeff Klineman interviewed Thomas at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, Calif. and found a stirring profile of a company that is balancing growth across three divisions: its largest, a retail kombucha line, as well as on-premise gourmet tea houses and a new distilling operation that repurposes the alcohol generated from kombucha fermentation
It wasn’t a sale, it was an adoption, said the Bai CEO of the $1.7 billion DPSG deal.
Sources have confirmed that a deal for PepsiCo to acquire KeVita is nearing the end stages, with the larger company paying between $400 and $500 million for the brand.
Goldberg, a former Wall Street executive, told our team all about his journey from antidepressants to clean-living organic foodie and media figure, with conversational stops along the way on the offerings at Expo East, the difference between Ripple Foods and almond milk, and, most importantly, what he’d do if faced with the choice of eating Arby’s or a bag of organic palm sugar.
The joint venture with Coke will be Dunkin’ Donuts’ first venture into RTD coffee. The chain, publicly traded under Dunkin’ Brands, has long been a source of quick-served coffee and iced coffees on the go, and recently entered the cold brew coffee category itself.
Famous for building SoBe and selling it to Pepsi for close to $400M, Bello is one of two or three potential strategic additions to the board that Reed is hoping will help him hold off a new slate of directors: activist investors met with the ginger brew and root beer maker on Monday, he said, discussing their own slate of board members.
There are three investments on the books following its initial, $18 million raise (including Bonafide Provisions and Hope Foods), which closed in January. One more is scheduled to follow in short order.
