The market for super-premium coffee is rapidly expanding, and over the past two years, Stumptown Coffee Roasters has been laying the foundation to be a primary player in the category often referred to as “third wave coffee.”
Post Holdings Inc., the cereal maker behind Fruity Pebbles, Grape Nuts, and Honey Bunches of Oats, among others, paid $180 million for Premier Nutrition Corp., the company that makes functional beverages Joint Juice and Premier Protein shakes, among other products.
Sweetened with a blend of erythritol and stevia, Golazo's sugar-free varieties contain 10 calories per 12 oz. slim can, hence their "all-natural" tag. We're quite pleased with the formulation of the drinks, which also contain electrolytes and 100mg of caffeine, and, given the recent bad PR for mainstream energy products, we also like Golazo's approach of being a “sports energy drink.”
BevNET's 2013 Natural Beverage Guide -- the beverage industry's largest guide to beverages targeting the natural channel, including bottled waters and powders -- is now available for download. Get your FREE copy of the guide via the link below.
Marketed as "6 functional drinks in one bottle,” GreenFit is a new brand of all-natural drinks that are infused with protein, energy, fiber, antioxidants, "green superfoods" and electrolytes. While these added ingredients might be beneficial, it’s hard to imagine how many consumers want all of these benefits at once and are willing to sacrifice flavor in order to get them.
BevNET is pleased to announce that the next edition of its Beverage School will take place in San Francisco on Thurs., Sept. 12. It will offer a one-day, intensive introduction to the beverage business for aspiring entrepreneurs, along with a companion section on the right ways to raise capital for and structure a beverage business. Attendees will get a comprehensive overview on key areas of the industry, including product formulation, sales and marketing, distribution, and company organization.
In a Senate committee hearing that could have far-reaching implications for the energy drink business, a group of focused Senators tore into the current and past marketing strategies of energy drink companies, claiming they have targeted vulnerable children as potential consumers.
We're seeing a growing number of carbonated kombucha products on the market, including Live Soda, a brand of drinks that blend kombucha and soda. The products, which come in three varieties, are sugar- and stevia-sweetened and nicely formulated and feature flavors that may find some mainstream traction -- something that has eluded the kombucha category.
From HPP juices to evolving forms of energy products, the non-alcoholic beverage industry is being lauded for innovation. Some of these companies have been showcased in lists recently assembled by Forbes and BrandInnovators.com, confirming the diverse roots of ready-to-drink beverage trail blazers.
While Nu Smoothie is certainly a straightforward product -- it's a 100 percent blend of purées and juices -- we're left feeling as though the company is chasing a juice/nectar market that existed a decade ago.
Casey’s General Store was viewed as an operation that had adapted to changing times following a report from a Kansas City, Mo., television station indicating that Casey’s had enacted a restriction on the sale of energy drinks to minors. The report quickly snowballed to other parts of the country. Only problem: Casey’s wasn’t actually adapting — it was following its own status quo.
The opinion of a New York State appeals court mirrored what many denizens have muttered to themselves since Mayor Michael Bloomberg first hatched his soda ban efforts: too much power.
The first set of witnesses to be called for questioning by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during tomorrow's hearing on energy drink marketing includes representatives from the three biggest energy drink companies in the U.S., including Rodney Sacks, the chairman and CEO of Monster Beverage Corp.
The debate over energy drink safety is moving to the U.S. Senate tomorrow with the start of hearing in the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation examining the way energy drink companies market their products.
