At BevNET Live in Santa Monica earlier this week, retailers restated the theme: they understand the potential for emerging brands and they’re looking for partnerships. Representatives from 7-Eleven, Costco and Life Time Fitness, Inc. were on hand to discuss their interest in identifying the next wave of innovation and stocking their shelves with the buzzworthy brands of the next few years.
For a limited time only, we’re offering $250 off the full registration price for our BevNET Live Summer ’14 and Winter ’14 shows. As the premier business conference for the non-alcoholic beverage industry, BevNET Live events have consistently sold out, and NOW is the time to reserve your spot and save hundreds!
In the October edition of BevNET Magazine, we discussed the issues and challenges that CSDs face. Now, lets examine the opportunities that will be presented in the New World.…
The idea that a beverage company can spike or sink at any time carried over at the conference, indicating that entrepreneurs recognize the often uncontrollable factors at play. CEO Jeff Church knows that, even now, Suja could continue to reach new levels of prominence or have about the same shelf life as the juice itself.
With a spate of innovative, polished and well-executed products launching in 2013, judging this year's BevNET's Best of was perhaps the toughest task we've had in the 11 years of awards. Nevertheless, we are pleased to present what we believe are the top new brands in the beverage industry, and on a path to lead their respective categories for years to come.
BevNET.com, Inc., the beverage industry's leading source for news and reviews, has introduced BevNET Food and Beverage University (FBU), the next iteration of the company's highly successful BeverageSchool.com platform. Featuring a lineup of resources and media geared towards early-stage professionals, BevNET FBU covers a wide range of vital and relevant topics from which users will be able to get rapidly immersed in everything they'll need to know about the food and beverage industry.
Transparency, literal and figurative, is always good for a product. A pink lemonade should dress the part. As such, whenever possible, you should banner the brand to help the consumer make the connection. The reds, blues, greens and other colors of the spectrum helped to give Jones Soda and dozens of other companies their signature. They were all fun, and added to the drinking experience. That holds true today.
It’s easy to disrespect the Coke purchase of Glaceau, but taken together, the company brands have sold $1.3 billion in IRI-tracked channels in the past year; that puts the whole Coke water system at $2.2 billion, well ahead of PepsiCo. Smartwater has nearly eclipsed Vitaminwater, it’s true – but that gives the red system a premium-priced alternative to Dasani and a brand architecture that many brands would only dream of.
The segment certainly is becoming tantalizingly visible even to the beverage conglomerates. Some of the investment in Health-Ade, after all, came from the Coca-Cola Co. via its stake in the First Beverage fund; also, there have long been rumblings that kombucha-like probiotic brand KeVita has dallied with PepsiCo’s incubation arm in Southern California.
Nearly a month after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a preliminary determination that partially hydrogenated oils, the major dietary source of trans fat in processed foods, are no longer GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe), a prominent consumer advocacy group is calling for an end to the use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
What does it say about the beverage business that the small companies on display at Natural Products Expo East, the little sibling of the massive West Coast show, could generate more energy than those who were attending the annual showpiece fiesta of a giant organization?
The stigma is receding. The notion of bubbles isn’t so bad. From the gourmet to the Stevia generation, fewer products are afraid to fizz. Even as sprawling soda giants like Coke and Pepsi have seen overall volume declines, existing gourmet products like Fentiman’s, Reed’s, GuS, Fever Tree, Maine Root and Q Tonic have all ridden the expansion of the natural and specialty channel to increasing sales.
Start with a little (grape-flavored) holiday cheer, mix in a few warnings about sugary drinks, and finish with a sprinkling of rare tea, and you’ve got the Thanksgiving edition of Press Clips!
Last week, Bai Brands formally announced a new national distribution agreement with Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPSG), to bring its Bai 5 brand of coffee fruit-infused drinks into the soda giant’s vast DSD network. Ben Weiss, the founder of Bai, said that the deal will vault the brand onto the national stage, particularly with a partner like DPSG, which he said “has a real seat at the table” and “puts a lot more wind in your sails as you look to bring on national chains and satisfy that national footprint.”
