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For most beverage entrepreneurs, the phrase “blood, sweat, and tears” is less of a motivational term as it is a realistic view of a tough and often unforgiving industry. Creating a successful beverage brand is a difficult business, and as an investor in alkaline water brand AQUAhydrate, Mark Wahlberg is starting to see its challenges firsthand.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group announced via Twitter today that next month it will begin a national roll-out of 10-calorie versions of five soda brands, including 7-Up, Sunkist, Canada Dry, RC Cola and A&W Root Beer.
As my children have taught me, the scariest monsters are the ones you can’t see. And when it comes to scares, it’s certainly been a tough couple of months for Monster Energy, which has seen its share price ride something like the “Scream Machine” while it faces waves of negative publicity and scrutiny from state and federal authorities, lawyers, the media, and a public that is increasingly starting to rethink its relationship with these products.
Hoping to make a big splash in the country’s second largest market, HINT Water has signed an agreement with L.A. Distributing Co. to distribute the brand throughout Los Angeles county. HINT, which markets still and sparkling lines of unsweetened, flavored waters is looking to the upstart DSD distributor to dramatically increase its presence in the market, specifically in mainstream grocery and up and down the street retailers.
AriZona recently extended its line of Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear lemonades with a new mint-flavored variety. Although we find the blend of lemonade and mint flavors to be quite appealing, we question whether the brand as a whole can ultimately carve out a successful niche in that there is something that seems disconnected between the image of the golfer and the thoughts of summertime that are inevitable when drinking lemonade.
Call it the brotherhood of the scrappers, as the hard-working Sider brothers, Mark and Jon, have managed to leverage their friendship with floor-burned NBA journeyman Brian Scalabrine to create a series of videos on behalf of their underdog sports drink Greater Than.
As energy drinks continue to take heat from politicians and federal agencies for their caffeine content and labeling, the sales growth of Monster Energy and Red Bull has slightly decelerated, according to a consumer price index (CPI) report released Friday by Morgan Stanley.
As far as bottled water is concerned, high pH (aka alkalinized) water is certainly all the rage right now, at least in terms of new product introductions. And for many of the high pH brands that have been around for a while, rebranding efforts are underway. That’s exactly the case for Essentia, which has gone from being a brand that could blend in with the spring water masses to something that is attempting to establish itself as modern and sporty.
KeVita is launching a new product exclusively in Whole Foods after the first of the year, debuting its first entry into the hot “cleanse” category with KeVita Daily Cleanse. And it’s happening at the same time that the company is plowing new ground in mainstream channels.
As we come to the close of what has been a tumultuous year, I want to take stock of some of the issues that have dominated the news recently. The events of the past few weeks in my home city of New York are staggering and overwhelming. The efforts to recover and rebuild have been exemplary. It’s a stark contrast to an issue that has dominated our beverage universe – the controversy surrounding an unjust wrongful death lawsuit filed against Monster Energy.
The PepsiCo shuffle continues. After revealing a multi-million dollar marketing partnership with Beyonce and recent plans to “drinkify” snacks, the carbonated soft drink giant announced that it has added another sweetener to Diet Pepsi, according to the Associated Press.
A Chicago-area business has filed a class action lawsuit against Nestlé Waters North America Inc. (NWNA) claiming that five-gallon jugs of its Ice Mountain Water brand are falsely advertised as containing spring water when in actuality the water comes from a municipal source.
Much like the bevy of other sports/hydration drinks on the market, enterade is marketed as a dietary supplement for "hydration during stressful exercise and endurance sports." However, unlike competing brands, enterade contains a bare bones formulation of water, natural flavor, and sodium bicarbonate that makes the product rather unpleasant to consume.
As an investment banker with Silverwood Partners working in the healthy/active living consumer packaged goods (CPG) space, I’ve often said that the joke about investors is true – they enter the room walking backwards with their eye on the exit. Perhaps entrepreneurs and founders should, as well. Unless you are building a company to comfortably live off of cash flows, you will need to sell your company at some time.