Josh Groff Named CEO of More Labs
More Labs, the maker of several functional beverage brands including hangover shot Morning Recovery, has named Josh Groff as CEO, effective this month, as founder and former chief executive Sisun Lee moves into an operational role.
Groff, a beverage industry veteran who has previously held sales and marketing positions at brands such as Brew Dr. and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, takes over the chief executive role from More Labs founder Sisun Lee. He first joined the brand as its head of retail in 2018. Lee will remain with the company in a day-to-day capacity, primarily overseeing its ecommerce operations. Lee also remains a member of the brand’s board of directors.
According to Lee, the decision to step down as CEO came as the brand increased its presence in brick and mortar retail. Lee, whose background includes product management roles at Tesla and Uber, said he believed Groff was more suited to overseeing More Labs’ growth with a traditional beverage brand building strategy, while his own skills were suited towards the online channel.
“In hindsight it makes sense that we would expand into retail as we sell functional beverages … But that wasn’t always clear in the beginning and it was sort of a natural progression over time,” Lee said.
More Labs’ flagship product is Morning Recovery, a 3.4 oz. hangover remedy drink that launched in 2018. The company also sells several other functional drinks, including sleep aid Dream Well, energy supplement Liquid Focus and powdered hydration mix Aqua+.
Morning Recovery is currently available in over 14,000 stores nationwide, including CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, two divisions of Whole Foods, Safeway, Luckys, H-E-B, 7-Eleven, Casey’s and Circle K among others. According to Groff, the company is also focused on expanding its DSD network to service independent accounts including liquor stores. The brand’s current distribution partners include John Lenore & Co. in California, Crest and Crown Distributing in Arizona and Homegrown Distributors in Massachusetts.
Groff said the company does not plan to immediately add to its sales team, noting the company currently has 18 total employees of whom eight are full time sales people. To date, More Labs has reported over $21 million in revenue since its launch.
“We always want to have revenue precede building the team and make sure that we’re bringing on the revenue first to then bring on the team to support it,” Groff said. “Our team has been really good at being scrappy and hungry and making that happen.”
Super Coffee Promotes Hanna as CMO, Jeanes as VP of Operations
Kitu Life Super Coffee announced this week it has promoted VP of marketing Tori Hanna to CMO and director of operations Jacquelyn Jeanes to VP of Operations in a move that will help the brand fulfill a robust growth strategy this year.
Prior to joining Super Coffee in 2019, Hanna spent 18 years with sportswear brand Under Armour, with her last role being senior director of sports marketing. According to CEO Jim DeCicco, Hanna’s experience in the sports world is expected to play into the brand’s marketing strategy this year as Super Coffee plans to lean more heavily on its celebrity and athlete business partners, which include figures such as Alex Rodriguez, Baron Davis, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Lopez.
DeCicco said the company has a $15 million marketing budget across all channels for 2021. Although there are no “marquee campaigns” planned yet, he said Super Coffee intends to focus on social media, public relations and digital advertising to grow brand awareness.
Jeanes has been with the company since 2018 and previously held supply chain management roles at High Brew Coffee, The New Primal and Big Red. DeCicco said that as Super Coffee’s business grows — the brand now has over 40 SKUs across all product lines — securing supply chain and streamlining its integration with distribution partner Anheuser Busch InBev (AB) are key goals.
Last June, Super Coffee signed a master distribution agreement with AB, a partnership that has now more than doubled the brand’s ACV from 18% to 42%, DeCicco said. The company now aims to convert from working with AB’s individual wholesalers to working directly with AB, as well as “leveraging synergies for things like buying cans and manufacturing power.”
“We see our two biggest competitors as Starbucks’ Frappuccino and Dunkin Donuts RTD coffee,” DeCicco said. ‘They each have a national DSD partner [with PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company] so we knew to compete with them, we needed that unified network. And as we’re turning on national accounts like Walmart, Kroger and Target, in order for us to go to get nationally distributed in the stores through DSD, we needed a complete network. So that that would have been the power and really the impetus for the AB deal when we signed it last year.”
Last month, the brand also added Anna-Lena Kamenetzky-Wetzel, a founding partner of JAB Holding Company and former Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) board member, to its board of directors.
“She really knows the buyer side of the coffee landscape,” DeCicco said. “She’s going to be a big help.”
Rob Reilly Joins Monster Energy
Former Pabst Brewing Company brand manager Rob Reilly announced last month that he has joined Monster Energy Company as its director of field marketing. Reilly first joined Pabst in 2009 as a field marketing representative before becoming brand manager for the brewery’s craft and import beer portfolio in 2018.
“Monster is a world class organization with an incredible portfolio of products and an absolute all-star roster of talent,” Reilly said in an email to BevNET. “For me, the driving factor to join the organization lies with its culture, vision and values. The ‘Get S–t Done’ mentality that permeates how the Monster family shows up every day is simply inspiring.”
Pickle Juice Partner Collette Retires
Steve Collette, a partner in the Pickle Juice Co., announced last month that he is retiring from the company after 31 years working in the pickle industry. Collette has led the brand’s international development since 2007.
“My journey in the pickle industry has been quite a ride, and the two partners that succeed me are supremely qualified to carry this business forward,” Collette said in a press release. “This year, Pickle Juice outgrew the current facility we built just three years ago, a testament to our potential for expansion throughout the U.S. and in new countries. The future of this company is very bright.”