Six beverage startups emerged from a field of 12 contestants to secure a spot in tomorrow’s final round of New Beverage Showdown 29 at BevNET Live Summer 2025, presented by Coca-Cola’s North America Revenue Streams unit.
The group competing in Thursday’s final round includes Jubilee’s flavored milk, Kif kefir soda, Lucky Ox Asian sparkling beverages, OOSO sparkling tea, Cómo No caffeinated sparkling water and HY.Q modern sports drink.
The finalists were selected from a field of competitors that also featured AVSOME avocado seed tea, Deadless adaptogen elixir, FUZZEE functional coffee, Lemonuka lemonade and iced tea, Liquid Youth sparkling collagen water, and ZenJoy stress relief drink.
The participating brands each gave a two-minute presentation to the panel of judges, which included David De La Garza, Senior Director of New Revenue Streams, The Coca-Cola Company North America; Fred Hart, Founder and Creative Director, Hart Brands; Mike Schneider, CRMO, BevNET; and Rachel Krupa, Founder, The Goods Mart.
A common theme was easily discernible from the mix: founders are confident in better-for-you beverages featuring functional benefits, ranging from innovations within the modern soda space to enhanced hydration beverages.
Looking toward the final round, the judges encouraged entrepreneurs to address market opportunity and scalability.
“Identifying who their audience is and how they’re reaching them [is key]. The biggest thing for early stage brands is finding that community and building around it,” said Hart.
Tune into BevNET.com tomorrow, June 12, to watch the final round of the competition live, starting with part one at 8:30 a.m. ET and part two at 11 a.m. ET. The New Beverage Showdown 29 winner will be announced at 12:45 p.m. ET at the closing of BevNET’s annual summer conference. In addition to hard-earned bragging rights, the champion will walk away with a $10,000 awareness-building advertising package from BevNET and join the ranks of previous victors, including Poppi, Health-Ade, MALK and Cann, among others.