For Essentia Water, the challenge is clear: taking the same giant strides that have made it a natural and specialty channel leader and crossing the tracks into conventional channels. The ways the company intends to do so are outlined in the following video, taken from Natural Products Expo West last week.
Two weeks after PepsiCo’s board of directors roundly rejected a proposal from Peltz’s Trian Fund Management, in which the investment firm repeated its call for the cola giant to split its snack and beverage divisions into two separate companies, Trian yesterday sent a letter to PepsiCo’s board calling into question the credibility of company management and asking it to provide shareholders with analytical support for its continued reliance on the “Power of One” strategy.
Sometime last year, as Bhakti Chai continued to grow and founder Brook Eddy knew that she’d have to fund that growth, she figured she wouldn’t have much trouble finding angel investors in Boulder, Colo., where the company is based. But when she’d started to exhaust options in her own backyard, she stumbled upon the idea of crowdfunding — the accumulation of contributions from a number of parties — via CircleUp, a leading online platform in equity-based crowdfunding.
Having carved out distribution in over 500 retailers in the New York metro market, Frava, a line of naturally caffeinated juice drinks, is making its way to middle America, and, later this year, into one of the largest mass retail chains in the country.
Until distributors, retailers and consumers try maple water, they often hold expectations that don’t mirror reality. Rudy Quagliuolo, executive VP of Vertical Water, says as much in the embedded video, which was filmed this past weekend at Natural Products Expo West 2014 in Anaheim, Calif.
Balance “Cleanse” is a product that takes one of today’s emerging functions -- albeit one that is typically synonymous with juice -- and applies it to bottled water. To accomplish this, the company has added a variety of extracts that were inspired by Australian “bush medicine,” including papaya, she-oak, bottlebrush and bush iris. None of these ingredients impact the flavor, which is certainly a good thing in terms of the drinking experience.
With news that flavor supplier Senomyx has received regulatory approval for its Sweetmyx product, is PepsiCo closer to a “holy grail” ingredient that CSD companies have long coveted? Yesterday, Senomyx announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been awarded Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status to Sweetmyx, an ingredient said to enhance the flavor profile of reduced-calorie foods and beverages.
When news broke last week of the merger between Safeway and Cerberus Capital Management, the investor group that controls Albertsons, the beverage industry could sense the ripple effects. Among those who were paying attention, the industry’s many tiers understood that the news would significantly alter the retailer landscape in the U.S. However, few reactions had a tone as fatal as that of Jia Lynn Yang, reporter for The Washington Post.
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Here’s a math problem for you: if the show floor at Natural Products Expo West 2014 encompassed over 1 million square feet, how big do you think the proverbial elephant in the room (in this case, the Anaheim Convention Center) would have to be? Gargantuan, for sure, and for beverage exhibitors at the event, it was clear that the mammoth in the room is known as Whole Foods. The clout and sway of the natural grocer was in full display at Expo West.
BevNET’s 2014 Functional Beverage Guide features the largest and most comprehensive listing of functional beverage brands from a wide variety of categories as well as dozens of ingredient suppliers. The guide is an essential resource for beverage manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and retailers. Download your FREE copy of the guide here.
The Strawberry Lemonade flavor of A Game is a mainstream-oriented sports drink that features sea salt, honey and B vitamins. From a flavor perspective, it’s not that far off from being a traditional sports drink flavor; it’s almost like a cross between lemon lime and fruit punch flavors.
Natural Products Expo West 2014 offered buyers looking for new kids’ beverages several glimpses of new drinks that definitely colored outside the lines of longtime market stalwarts Capri Sun or Kool-Aid. But perhaps the most consistent idea was that some of the drinks featured products that had been repurposed from products or brands aimed for adults.
Wai Koko's new Coconut Infusions line comes in four varieties with each packaged in an 8.5 oz. slim can. Featuring two citrus-enhanced flavors, Island Citrus and Lemon Lime, as well as its original coconut water and a new mocha-flavored variety, the company has created a sub-line that is polished and attractive.
