It’s hard to characterize juice as any one thing, and that goes beyond its source fruit or vegetable. It can take the form of a childhood breakfast table staple, a buzzy health trend, a recovery drink, or a next-gen category-redefining innovation platform. But however you cut it, one thing is consistent – juice is in a slump (again).
The annual Nosh Packaged Food Guide.
What’s driving craft beer acquisition? International breweries. And it’s not just to create wide-ranging multinational sources of revenue. At a time when import sales are on the rise, some leading European and Japanese brands are actually using their U.S. beer acquisitions as a way to expand the footprint for their flagship products.
Capri Sun’s right where it always is: a 40-plus share, with sales north of $500 million, followed by Kool-Aid, whose Jammers and Bursts are also part of the Kraft Heinz beverage empire, covering a whopping 70-ish share. We’ve been getting those numbers from Circana (nee IRI) for almost 20 years now, and I’ve looked as far back as I could; channel coverage has changed, but the proportions haven’t.
Energy drink mixes and sports drinks by sales and growth.
In food industry news: Our Home Acquires ParmCrisps From Hain Celestial; Daily Crunch Snags $4 Million in Series A; Stuffed Puffs Acquired; and Peter Rahal’s New Protein Bar Startup Raises $10 Million.
These days executives at big CPG companies will claim to be agents of disruption even when they foray nothing more than a modest line extension to one of their mainstay brands. One might even question the premise that you can intentionally set about disrupting a category in which you are among the established leaders yourself.
The age of liquid metal has been on my mind a lot lately. After watching Terminator II recently at home, I then watched a bunch of old Capri Sun ads from the mid-90s that captured the same shiny, shape shifting aesthetic of the Cyberdyne Systems T-1000.
In craft beer news: Tilray Acquires 4 Craft Brands From Molson Coors; Whitney Stevenson Joins JuneShine as President and Chief Commercial Officer; Left Hand Raising Capital to Build Craft Platform; and Shaquille O’Neal Invests in BeatBox.
In beverage news: California Moves to Shut The Door On Hemp-Derived THC Products; Chris Gallant Named CEO of ZICO Rising; Dry Drinks Curator Sèchey Soaks Up New Funding from InvestBev; and Perricone Farms Acquires Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company.
We passed Labor Day and are heading into the final stage of our beverage cycle, so I’d like to take stock of where things are vs. where I thought they’d be. I think back to the start of 2024 and my optimism for a banner year.
