A recent report by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) says that the convenience frontier keeps growing. According to the report, U.S. convenience stores increased in-store sales in 2013 to a record $204 billion. As of Dec. 31, 2013, the U.S. convenience store count had increased to 151,282 stores, a 1.4 percent increase from the previous year.
In the embedded video, which was filmed at Natural Products Expo West 2014, Baagua founder and CEO Dale Starnes said that the inclusion of whole-piece ingredients was “a happy accident.” It started as a practice of efficiency.
In an interview with BevNET CEO John Craven, David Smith said that High Brew would “attempt to reverse that trend” of sweet coffee products with a formulation that features a stronger coffee flavor than competing brands along with reduced sugar and calorie content, as compared to other coffee drinks.
The luxury of eating well without putting in the time was once reserved for those able to finance a maid or butler. Now, replacement beverages are stepping up and Omgblends wants a piece of the pie, which already includes brands such as Suja and Sambazon.
For one of the country’s hottest brands in the natural channel, Natural Products Expo West 2014 also seemed to be something of a point of departure for Kevita, a fast-growing sparkling probiotic brand that aims for 100 percent growth annually for the next five years – and has hit that mark for the past two, according to co-founder Bill Moses.
Having established itself as a leading player in the rarified realm of “third wave coffee,” Chameleon Cold-Brew has now set its sights on bringing high-end coffee to a broader base of consumers with a new line of single-serve, ready-to-drink products.
When we’ve seen companies fuse disparate categories into one beverage, it’s the consumers who often inspire the innovation. It’s the same story with Cleveland-based Garden of Flavor, which blends cold-pressed juice with probiotics.
In this video, filmed at Heath-Ade’s booth at Natural Products Expo West 2014, BevNET CEO John Craven speaks with co-founder Daina Trout about the company’s frugal deployment of capital, its production strategy and why an increase in manufacturing requires a slow and steady approach. Trout also discusses the target market for Health-Ade, why the kombucha category can pull from other beverage segments and new distribution of its beverages.
Think maple and birch tree water companies have lots of work to do before persuading consumers? Think the same for cactus water? From a matter of association, and the arduous steps of building a contiguous category, the challenges could be next to nothing when compared to those of artichoke water.
In the embedded video, which was filmed at the Caliwater booth at Natural Products Expo West 2014, founder Matt McKee goes into greater detail about the product’s chief benefits, such as skin revitalization and bodily detoxification. Among other effects, he said that the betalains can reduce under-eye puffiness and add a glow to skin.
For Essentia Water, the challenge is clear: taking the same giant strides that have made it a natural and specialty channel leader and crossing the tracks into conventional channels. The ways the company intends to do so are outlined in the following video, taken from Natural Products Expo West last week.
Sometime last year, as Bhakti Chai continued to grow and founder Brook Eddy knew that she’d have to fund that growth, she figured she wouldn’t have much trouble finding angel investors in Boulder, Colo., where the company is based. But when she’d started to exhaust options in her own backyard, she stumbled upon the idea of crowdfunding — the accumulation of contributions from a number of parties — via CircleUp, a leading online platform in equity-based crowdfunding.
Until distributors, retailers and consumers try maple water, they often hold expectations that don’t mirror reality. Rudy Quagliuolo, executive VP of Vertical Water, says as much in the embedded video, which was filmed this past weekend at Natural Products Expo West 2014 in Anaheim, Calif.
Here’s a math problem for you: if the show floor at Natural Products Expo West 2014 encompassed over 1 million square feet, how big do you think the proverbial elephant in the room (in this case, the Anaheim Convention Center) would have to be? Gargantuan, for sure, and for beverage exhibitors at the event, it was clear that the mammoth in the room is known as Whole Foods. The clout and sway of the natural grocer was in full display at Expo West.
