Press Clips: Brooklyn’s Hottest Beverage Trend
For those completely unfamiliar with switchel, you’re not alone; it’s a beverage that, until recently, hasn’t been widely consumed since colonial times.
Headlines
Can Kombucha Go Mainstream?
It may be hard to imagine how, just a few short years ago, even to an informed readership like BevNET’s, kombucha was just a curiosity. And while it would be premature to deem kombucha as a mainstream beverage, things are changing.
Channel Check: Ready-to-Drink Coffee
Among the new and intrepid, Coco Cafe is the tallest of the small, while Illy is showing positive growth and also indexing in the refrigerated section with another $3 million or so not included here. Still, it’s a long way to the top.
WSJ: PepsiCo Confirms SodaStream Test
The Wall Street Journal reported that PepsiCo and SodaStream have agreed to a “small-scale, limited-time test” that will begin in the coming weeks.
Distribution Roundup: Premium/Specialty CSD Brands Gain Momentum
Amid a downturn in consumption of legacy soda products, upstarts like Minta, Sipp, Something Natural and POP Water are gaining steam in variety of regions across the country and in retailers ranging from single-store grocers to regional giants.
When Using Novel Ingredients, Are All Co-Packers Created Equal?
In the following video on BevNET Food and Beverage University, Mamma Chia founder Janie Hoffman discusses the process by which she was able to identify and partner with co-packers that could mass produce a beverage that incorporated a novel and often challenging ingredient to work with, which in her case, is the chia seed.
What’s Trending? Ask Whole Foods.
A look at how the retailer is exploring new ways to execute behind its core competency.
After Profits Take a Hit, Coke Names New Marketing Chief
Coke today revealed that Joe Tripodi, its Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, will be succeeded be Marcos De Quinto, who has been President of Coke’s Iberia Business Unit since 2000.
Four Waters. Four Functions.
As various kinds of water innovation continue to surface in the beverage marketplace, broad modifiers are becoming harder to use. “Functional” or “Enhanced” water means a lot of things these days.
Body Armor’s “Upgrade” Slogan Faces FTC Hearing
Body Armor, the upstart sports drink brand that hopes to topple Gatorade from its long-held category leadership, may have to face an FTC hearing over its tagline, “Upgrade Your Sports Drink.”
Press Clips: Study Links CSDs to Aging
A study recently published in the American Journal of Public Health, summarized by Time, found that daily consumption of carbonated soft drinks can age white blood cells by almost two years.
Coke Announces Expanded Cost-Cutting Strategy
Coke’s numbers for the three month period fell short of analyst expectations and elicited what company Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent described as a “hard look at our progress to date.”
NACS Video: Here’s Why Sparkling Ice Launched Tea
Even with the presence of major players like Lipton, Nestle, AriZona, and Coke in the category, Talking Rain CEO Kevin Klock said, there was an opportunity to bring in a new, single-serve brand that could add to the company's volume. "We're between categories," Klock told BevNET during a videotaped interview on the floor of NACS. "That's where the white space is."
AriZona Aims For the Dairy Aisle with “Good Brew”
AriZona’s most intriguing new product was one that the company gave only scant attention at the 2014 NACS show. While the company displayed only a couple prop bottles of “Good Brew,” a lemon-flavored, cane sugar-sweetened tea, packaged in a clear 59 oz. carafe with a teal-colored cap and hipster/throwback label, the multi-serve beverage certainly stood out.