A new report from SymphonyIRI indicates that consumers continue to worry about the economy and their personal financial situations and - hoping to find the best value for their money - are making more food and beverage purchases at dollar and club stores.
It happened quietly and without much detail, but TSG Consumer Partners – the same private equity company that backed Vitaminwater and that currently owns a chunk of Cytosport – took a minority position in Neuro earlier this year.
PepsiCo has named Debra Crew to a new role as president of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, as the company continues to shuffle leadership roles in its beverage business. The move comes as Sarah Robb O'Hagan, the head of PepsiCo's Gatorade business, departed the company. O'Hagan had been the president of Gatorade since 2011 and was largely credited with improving lagging sales of the brand by refocusing its marketing toward teen athletes.
Starbucks has announced plans to dramatically increase the production and distribution capacity of Evolution Fresh juices with the construction of a new juicing plant in Southern California. Starbucks, which acquired the ultra-premium juice company in November, will replace the company's current manufacturing plant in San Berdardino, Calif. with a new high-tech facility in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., set to open in late 2013.
Although its co-founder said that Guayaki isn’t one of those brands trying to get into Target, with the launch of its new sparkling drink line, the yerba mate company may end up there anyway. Aiming to elicit greater trial and exposure of yerba mate among mainstream consumers Guayaki recently launched a line of sparkling yerba mate products in May. David Karr, the co-founder and vice president of marketing for Guayaki, said the line is the company’s “most successful product launch ever.”
Thanks to the miracle of smart phones, my contacts often zap me photos of interesting store displays they spot in their market meanderings. One subset that we occasionally flag consists of ridiculously hot deals on purportedly super-premium beverages. And despite rhetoric from top brass to the contrary, it’s easy to get sucked into brand-equity-draining deals when you’re trying to hit a volume number or appease an important retail customer.
He’s kept a low profile since helping sell early acai competitor Bossa Nova to Sunny Delight Beverage Co., but REBBL CEO Palo Hawken hasn’t been completely out of the beverage business, he’s happy to say. In fact, REBBL is the "sort of the brand concept I’ve been working on for a lifetime,” Hawken told BevNET.
It wasn’t slowed by the downturn, it has benefited from health and wellness trends and has been the category into which many exciting new brands have launched and grown. For each of those reasons, RTD tea is a category that remains at a rolling boil: total sales of RTD in the U.S. were up by 7 percent in 2011, according to Euromonitor International – and have moved from just over $5 billion to just under $8 billion since 2006.
On the heels of a stock fiasco that has seen its share price plummet in recent days, Monster Beverage Corp. has authorized an additional $250 million repurchase of its outstanding common stock. Monster's announcement today appears to be an attempt to stem the tide after revealing last week that its second quarter earnings came up slightly short of analyst expectations and the company's disclosure that it had received a subpoena from an unnamed state attorney general.
Sports and nutrition brand FRS announced it is terminating its deal with PepsiCo at the end of the year and turning much of the responsibility for its chain account management to sales/distribution organization L.A. Libations. FRS uses PepsiCo’s distribution system to reach major grocery and drug chain accounts, however, the system is also employed by Gatorade and the arrangement has resulted in FRS failing to receive the kind of support it felt it needed, according to CEO Carl Sweat.
The curtain may have closed on the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, but ZICO's partnership with the international games is just getting started. Last week, ZICO announced that it was named "the Official Coconut Water of the Olympic Games," a designation based on parent company The Coca-Cola Co. Inc.'s sponsorship of the Olympics, and one that provides the coconut water company with the same marketing rights as Coke through the duration of its current sponsorship.
Concerned about the long-term risks of water shortages, the top beverage companies in the world are spending millions of dollars every year on conservation and sustainability efforts to protect access to the crucial ingredient, according to a recent article by the Associated Press.
Energy Drink juggernaut Monster Energy revealed yesterday that it is facing a subpoena from an unnamed state attorney general concerning the brand -- and also received notice it was being sued by a well-known rap group.
Regular readers of this column (all nine of you) are aware that I’m not one to blast regulation. In fact, my knee tends to jerk the other way, believing that, grandstanding aside, the social obligations of a business mean that most regulations are worthy of strong consideration and adoption.
