At the recently held 2015 Winter Fancy Food Show, we sat down with Mark Mahoney, co-founder of Powell & Mahoney, to discuss the evolution of the cocktail mixer category and how his company is keeping up with a burgeoning shelf set, as well as new retail and distribution opportunities for craft-centric brands and trends we can expect to see blossom in the coming months.
Marketed as “Chewable Juice,” Harvest Soul has introduced a two-SKU line of beverage blends made with high pressure processed juice and bits of seeds, nuts and berries, which the company terms as “chewables.”
Suavva, which we first reviewed in 2012, has been given a makeover, both in its packaging and formulation. While maintaining its key ingredient, cacao juice, the beverage, which had been a pasteurized 70 percent juice product, now sports a 100 percent juice formulation that is high pressure processed and promoted as “cold-squeezed.”
Before he was selling soda, Peter van Stolk was slinging freshly-squeezed juices out of his truck in Edmonton. 30 years later the Jones Soda founder’s latest venture is bringing him back to his roots.
In this video, we examine what categories have benefited and how brands have adapted their retail and distribution strategies to take advantage of an evolved specialty channel.
Circling the show floor, BevNET visited with dozens of the beverage booths at the event and came away with a number of highlights regarding brand innovation, line extensions and new products.
Jay Street Coffee, the coffee brand marketed by Japanese tea giant Ito En, has added a potent 6.4 oz. “Coffee Shot” to its lineup. It’s pure unadulterated coffee and made with only two ingredients: water and coffee. Aside from being a nice alternative to Ito En’s tea-based shots, we think that this is a great showcase for the company's ability to also be a high quality coffee contender.
An uptick of cold-brew coffee and kombucha exhibitors signals a desire for brands in each category to take on a greater market presence via the specialty channel and beyond.
Ito En last month released the preliminary details of an acquisition in which the Japanese tea giant will purchase Distant Lands Coffee Co., a vertically integrated coffee company.
Coke and Pepsi are making their smaller sizes more widely available and increasing marketing efforts on behalf of their mini-cans.
While the concept of mixing cinnamon with coconut water isn’t new, this is the first entry that we’ve seen in shelf-stable form (Harmless Harvest being the first -- albeit a perishable -- option). Having only two ingredients (coconut water and cinnamon), the product has a very clean flavor.
Welch’s Sparkling Grape and Welch’s Sparkling Strawberry will be packaged in AriZona’s iconic 23oz “Big Can”.
Despite Monster Beverage’s return to double-digit growth in dollar sales in the four-week period ending 12/20/14, analysts aren’t sold that the company can keep it up in 2015.
2015 kicked off with big news from New York beverage distribution heavyweight Big Geyser, which informed suppliers that the company had requested a buyout of its contract with Glaceau from Coca-Cola.
