After getting rave reviews at the December BevNET Live event -- taking home the award during the New Product Showdown -- Coco Café had to imagine that it would be getting a lot of attention and some new accounts. But apparently things have really accelerated for the Los Angeles-based espresso/coconut water blend, as Vita Coco, the country's best selling coconut water brand has swooped in to make an investment in Coco Café.
The loss of a pair of high-ranking executives at the Marley Beverage Company has forced organizational change at the fast-growing company. In September, Chief Marketing Officer Paul Fuegner left the company – and while the company has not yet filled the role, it has also not yet executed a strategy to fill the position with brand managers for its different product lines.
It has been a while since we took a look at CodeBlue and a lot has changed for the product. What used to be a single SKU carbonated beverage is now a four flavor non-carbonated line, with the function (recovery) about the only holdover from the original product. Visually, it feels like a much more complete product, while variety of flavor is something that never seems to hurt either.
The Toronto Star is reporting that Swiss packaging giant SIG Combiblock is preparing to debut chewable drinks -- cartons filled with a variety of fruits, nuts, grains, etc. -- in Canada. As anyone who has worked through bubble tea, aloe drinks, or Orbitz knows, there is so far only a small market for heterogeneous beverages. So it's really your call if you want to go into the biz.
More big news for Body Armor with news that the company has aligned itself with Big Geyser, one of the largest beverage distributors in metro New York. Big Geyser will act as the exclusive distributor of Body Armor throughout New York City, as well as Westchester, Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The distribution deal is Body Armor's first on the East Coast.
ARMA Energy SNX, whose primary line of business is creating energy enhanced nuts (the company is owned by nut processor John B. Sanfilippo & Son), has recently moved into a more familiar medium of delivering energy: liquid. Their first offering, which is simply labeled "ARMA Energy", is a very nice product that has a clean and polished look.
After 18 months at the Coca-Cola Co., Inc., he vowed he’d never come back to the beverage game. The big sale -- $4.1 billion for Vitaminwater maker Glaceau -- was over, the transition team was largely in place, and he had other goals in mind. "I don't think any human being could put in the energy and intensity that I put into those years," Repole said of the early 2000s. "I don't think it could ever be duplicated."
On the heels of PepsiCo’s announcement that Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks RTD Beverages have each surpassed $1 billion in sales over the past year, Salman Amin, the executive VP and CMO of PepsiCo, penned an article for Forbes about the company’s core strategies in developing and marketing a billion-dollar brand.
How long do entrepreneurs wait to raise money, how does an investor ultimately decide if a valuation is reasonable, and what helps to eliminate stresses on a potential partnership. Those were just a few of the topics that the presenters from Building Sweet Leaf Up and Out tackled as they took questions from the moderator and crowd during December's BevNET Live in Santa Monica.
GoodBelly's Coconut Water, which is the only probiotic enhanced coconut water on the market, was actually launched last year at Expo West. However, the product was only recently ported to an 8 ounce PET bottle (it used to be exclusively in a milk carton container).
Aloe Gloe might have been the first aloe drink with a mainstream focus, but it appears that Brain-Twist founder Larry Trachtenbroit is aiming to have the prettiest. Trachtenbroit, along with supermodel Petra Nemcova, recently appeared at an industry conference to introduce his latest product, Halo.
TheBU Kombucha is a recently launched line of kombucha that is produced in Hawaii. Their goal is to create something that helps kombucha make its way to the mainstream. How are they going to do this? It starts with the product having an enjoyable flavor, while they've also worked hard to get the level of carbonation consistently to what they see as the proper level.
It might have seen Pepsi-Cola get leapfrogged by Diet Coke for the number two carbonated beverage slot, but PepsiCo did anoint three core holdings as brands that have sold more than $1 billion in the past year, announcing that Diet Mountain Dew, Brisk and Starbucks RTD Beverages had crossed that threshold.
Sparkling ICE recently added two new flavors: Lemonade & Coconut Pineapple. Like the rest of their flavors, the two newest additions are enhanced with natural flavors, vitamins, and antioxidants. The…
