Location: Floor 2

Topics covered during Beverage School Curriculum:
The Entrepreneurial Life (Madeline Haydon, Founder, Nutpods)
Understanding Co-Packing (Brian Dworkin, CEO, Castle Co-Packers)
Route to Market (Bill Sipper, Managing Partner, Cascadia Managing Brands)
Small Format Channel Strategy (Andy Steele, Founder, Anonymous Sales Consulting)
Early Stage Investment Vehicles (Will Bernat, Partner, Nutter)
Financial Fluency and Margins (Claire Pelton, Growth Marketing Manager, BELAY)

Followed by Roundtable Q&A and Networking

Location: Floor 2

Pre-scheduled, 10-minute meetings with retailers, investors, and industry peers. Prior registration required. Check in at the One-to-One Help Desk before heading to your meeting.

Examining the beverage marketplace for trends in consumer, retail, investment and brand performance issues from experts who are in the mix on a daily basis. 

Culture Pop CEO Tom First, a longtime entrepreneur, investor, and board member, shares strategies for keeping brands nimble and lean, with a focus on catching category leaders over the long term.

Location: Floor 2

Hype around AI is everywhere, but real results are fickle. Bero's Neha Soi and Glimpse CEO Akash Raju join LA Libations' Dan Weisbach to unpack how AI is actually driving efficiency and supporting hyper-growth in the new consumer landscape.

Vitamin Shoppe is one of the key stops for functional brands establishing a national footprint. Nicolletta Payne heads beverage decisions for this nutrition and supplement retailer.

Truesdell has spent her entire career building brands, first as a Whole Foods Forager, now as a CPG investor of considerable renown. She discusses the ways she recognizes and fosters breakout potential in her portfolio.

Ben Weiss, the founder of Bai, sits down for a conversation on entrepreneurship, brand building, investment, and the state of the beverage industry as he launches new brand Crooked Pop.

Location: Floor 2

Athletic’s rise has reshuffled the deck of beverage categories. Shufelt will talk about building the company that powered that change, address how he's navigated explosive growth, what he’s learned about raising capital, and unpack his approach to brand positioning and category creation.

Location: Floor 2

AI has created more insights across the beverage industry — but not necessarily better execution. This workshop explores how beverage organizations are using AI to reduce decision latency, identify execution gaps faster, and turn fragmented commercial data into coordinated action, front-line growth, and measurable margin impact.

Longtime beverage marketing veteran Adam Kost will discuss his lean startup, proof-of-concept strategy, the key insight that gave Dirty Shirley the oxygen it needed to grow, and the branding ideas that created Dirty Shirley’s emotional connection to its audience.

Between Kevita, Spindrift, Koia, Remedy Organics and more, growth equity investment firm KarpReilly has backed small- and medium-sized beverage brands for more than 15 years. KarpReilly Managing Director Hank Spring will discuss capital deployment and the investor/entrepreneur relationship that takes place as brands mature and scale.

How is the world's largest grocer adjusting to meet the next generation of world-changing beverage brands?

Laura Taylor, founder of Mingle, joins Samantha Fletcher, senior category merchant at Whole Foods Market, for a rare founder–buyer conversation on what makes a pitch resonate, how brands can build productive retailer relationships, and what growth actually looks like once you’re on shelf.

Location: Floor 2

From spreadsheets to scalable systems. Learn how Coaqua and Leisure Hydration use AI to accelerate their order-to-cash cycle, gain better visibility across their operations, and stay lean as demand grows.