Titan Tea’s electrolyte-infused teas will soon be made available at 300 of UNFI’s top independent stores nationwide.

Readers of my last two columns get the point quickly: food and beverage companies in the natural products industry should strive for racial and ethnic diversity. To that end, now we’re going to think about solutions: practices that the industry and its component companies can inaugurate to spur both employee and entrepreneurial diversity.

BevNET’s annual Natural Beverage Guide is the industry’s largest guide to beverage brands targeting the natural channel, including plant-based waters, kombucha, cold-pressed juice, as well as the companies that supply goods and services to those brands.

Speaking on his competitor’s decision to reformulate Diet Pepsi, Alexander “Sandy” Douglas Jr., executive vice president & president of Coca-Cola North America, said on a Coke earnings call that the new Diet Pepsi will “create a lot of buzz in the category, some of it good, as the good science of the safety of non-nutritive sweeteners gets out in the marketplace and is reinforced.”

The remarkable success in marketing coconut water as a sports drink, while subtly shifting, has given way to a range of plant-based and naturally formulated beverages seeking to emulate a similar path.

Having recently secured new distribution and retail placement in Southern California, Genius Juice, which produces a line of high pressure processed (HPP) organic coconut smoothies, has refined its branding, reduced its product offerings and unveiled a new 12 oz. bottle.