Hansen’s Beverages Goes Half-and-Halfway
Under VP of Marketing Blair Owens, Hansen’s Beverages, the natural beverages company that is better known as the owners of Monster Energy, has slowly begun to extend its portfolio into…
Review: Fentiman’s Cherry Tree Cola
Like all of Fentiman’s products, Cherry Tree Cola is a premium carbonated soft drink that uses fermented ingredients (in this case, fermented ginger root extract) to create an enjoyable and…
Download BevNET’s 2011 NACS Show Planner
The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) annual show is less than a week away in Chicago, IL. The largest event for the convenience and petroleum retailing industry, NACS is…
The Fight For Florida
The Sunshine State matters a lot – and that can drive beverage companies crazy. As one of the nations’s electoral swing states as well as the site of no fewer…
BevNET TV: A Recap of Expo East 2011
With more than 100 beverage-related exhibitors and over 20,000 attendees, Natural Products Expo East returned to Baltimore after a three year stint in Boston. While Expo East lacked the thunderous atmosphere that Expo West enjoyed earlier this year, the show did feature a number of new and innovative beverage companies introducing products in growth categories like tea, coconut water and aloe juice, as well as several rebrands and repackaging efforts - most notably by Honest Tea.
O.N.E. Rebrands Active, adds Supply from Philippines
It wasn’t an easy summer for O.N.E. Expectations that the brand would be entering the Pepsi distribution system on a national level – and that the product itself would be…
Juice: Halfway Home; Stevia Blends Start to Fit In
It seemed like a perfect fit: an all-natural zero-calorie sweetener, the first of its kind, cutting into the sugar and calories of juices without losing any of the sweetness. Even…
The New Distribution Landscape, Part 2
In Part 1, I made the perhaps counterintuitive case that distribution options for fledgling non-alcoholic beverage brands actually may be on the rise, even in a broader landscape where wholesale…
L.A. Libations Goes for Mainstream with Aloe Gloe
They’ve spent the past few years helping brands like ZICO, Neuro, and CasCal land key retailers, but now beverage incubator L.A. Libations is hoping that its brand-building know-how will help…
Review: Harvest Bay Coconut Water
One of the more talked about items at Expo East was (surprise surprise), a coconut water. In the case of Harvest Bay, it wasn't the product itself that was talked about, but the brand's owner: Blue Marble Brands (an independent subsidiary of natural foods distribution powerhouse United Natural Foods). Connecting the dots, people in the industry were questioning whether or not this would have negative impact on other coconut water brands that are in the UNFI system. In any event, today we're taking a look at the product -- and it's a pretty solid effort on the part of Blue Marble Brands.
The Science Of Substantiation
For those in the beverage, food and supplement industries who were relieved that they would never have to hear about subjects like biology or chemistry again after graduation from high school or college, the recent regulatory climate has brought back some unpleasant memories. Whether being used to determine the safety of ingredients and products or providing substantiation for claims, science has permeated the beverage, food and supplement industries deeper than ever. Science has always been important from the perspective of product development and manufacture; now, it’s become a key to advertising and promotion.
Review: Naked “Reduced Calorie” with Coconut Water
When we first saw a mockup of Naked’s new reduced calorie line back in March, it looked like it was going to have a pretty nice looking label design. Now,…
Review: Madrina’s
Madrina’s, which is named after the Spanish word for “godmother”, is a line of beverages that were inspired by traditional Latin American products. While conceptually, that’s a strategy that might…
Industry Data: Energy Shots
Here’s a tale of three behemoths: one, 5-Hour Energy,continues to roam the energy shot category like a T-Rex, towering above all other competition. Meanwhile, Red Bull has pulled out, despite pulling in nearly $30 million last year and building what had been a solid second-place brand. Still in the game, however, is Hansen’s, whose CEO,Rodney Sacks, recently reaffirmed the Monster-maker’s commitment to Worx Energy, which is growing quickly into the category. Meanwhile, other established companies continue to find the climb to shot respectability a steep one: NOS, Rockstar, AriZona are all seeing big reversals.