The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) annual show is less than a week away in Las Vegas. The largest event for the convenience and petroleum retailing industry, NACS is also one of the beverage industry’s most important events of the year. This year’s show features over 100 beverage companies, and BevNET has created a ready-to-print planner to help you navigate the event.
As Rising Beverage Co. prepares to relocate its headquarters from Newport Beach, to Los Angeles, Dan Holland has stepped down as CEO citing concerns about a long commute. Rising Beverage, the marketer of twist-cap brand Activate, has elevated COO Reza Mirza to the role of president. According to Mirza, Rising Beverage chairman Michael Eisner, the former chairman of Disney and the father of Activate co-founder Anders Eisner, will take a more active role in the company.
It's down in the trenches, dirty, and often ugly. That's the entrepreneurial beverage business, according to Jack Brennan, a managing partner at advisory firm GBS Growth Partners, and a beverage industry veteran with decades of experience in beverage distribution, retail sales, marketing and finance. Brennan, who cut his teeth launching new business ventures in Asia with The Coca-Cola Co., Inc., currently advises early stage companies on growth and development strategies.
In this video segment filmed at Grady’s Cold Brew headquarters in Brooklyn, BevNET founder and CEO John Craven sits down with Laird to discuss a range of topics, including the growth of cold brew beverages, and how having a home base in New York’s most eclectic borough is deeply tied to its success. Laird also addresses rapid crowding within the cold brew coffee category, and the importance of differentiation and education as a way to stand out among similarly branded products.
Early registration for BevNET Live (December 3 and 4 in Santa Monica, CA) expires in just two weeks! Register now and you’ll not only lock in your seat, but you’ll…
FRS recently cut a significant number of positions (albeit fewer than 20) as it realigns itself to transition from a sales and marketing model supported significantly via PepsiCo’s warehouse division to one that is staffed by brand incubation house L.A. Libations.
Rebranding itself as a product for everyday active consumers, AQUAHydrate has unveiled a new logo, label, and marketing strategy. Under a new management team led by former Pabst and Fiji chief John Cochran, and backed by a number of well-known celebrities and investors, including Mark Wahlberg, Sean Combs, and grocery magnate Ron Burkle, the company has shifted its focus away from a narrow set of elite athletes to "a broader swath of active, health-conscious consumers."
I’m from the old school. I’ve written, many a time, my aversion for much of modern technology, although often it’s not in longhand anymore. Friends, both personal and professional, are aghast that I still haven’t embraced a smart phone and the world that it opens up. My colleagues kid me about it, although they seem to accept that they’ll never see me log into our Sales Force system anytime soon. I just turned 64, and, somehow, I’ve been able to get by and stay connected to the industry just fine.
Fresh off a $3 million round of financing, Brooklyn-based Runa showcased its line-up of ready-to-drink and loose Guayusa products at last week's Natural Products Expo East show. In this quick video, BevNET CEO John Craven speaks with Runa co-founder Dan MacCombie about the company's rapid growth over the past year, plans for new distribution on the West Coast, and supporting Runa current retail presence, which is based mostly in the Northeast.
Beverage marketers discovered the produce section more than a decade ago, and produce buyers went along with them, knowing that the margins those products offered made the space investment worthwhile. The prices it could command, the prominent positioning, the lack of slotting and the familiarity with fast-expiring products made the section a natural for the fresh squeezed, lightly processed, high-turnover juices that emerged in the late 1990s.
While Natural Products Expo East often gets overshadowed by its massive sister shows, this year's edition, which featured dozens of entrepreneurial beverage brands, certainly held its own. Offering a mild glimpse of post-recession recovery for natural beverage brands and the industry as a whole, Expo East featured a strong showing from beverage suppliers, distributors, and manufacturers, with many showcasing innovative ingredients and sweeteners seen for the first time at the show.
Sharpening its focus on growing trends of health and wellness, Bai Brands has quietly phased out its original line of coffee fruit-infused drinks in favor of its five-calorie Bai5 line. According to Bai Brands founder Ben Weiss, the company ceased production of the original line "about three months ago," and has set sights on careful expansion of the Bai5 brand with a goal of national distribution by the first quarter of 2014.
Sure, 5-Hour Energy gets all the attention.It should: the company is one of the new millennium’s most impressive meatspace success stories, taking the rising tide of energy drinks and rethinking them into a smaller package. If energy drinks are the mega-version of the soda, then 5-Hour Energy is almost a reimagining of the very same morning espresso that has powered Europe for centuries – a tiny shot that, rather than coming hot and bitter, is in a sweet, portable, oh-so-American package.
Now that it’s bottled and available – for now, pretty much only in Boston, via Blue Coast distributing, but soon to roll out in New York – the company is looking for a full-time CEO to run the business.
