He's been a standard-bearer for the organic success story for years, as well as a mentor to Honest Tea co-founder Seth Goldman, but Stonyfield founder Gary Hirshberg announced today that he's handing day-to-day operations over to former Ben & Jerry's CEO Walt Freese. Hirshberg's sale of Stonyfield to Danone in 2003 -- and subsequent operation of the company as a unit with autonomy within that larger company -- is largely seen as a model for Goldman's sale of Honest Tea to the Coca-Cola Co. last year.

BevNET is now accepting listings for the 2012 Functional Beverage Guide. To be published as a special section in the March issue of BevNET Magazine, the Functional Beverage Guide feature functional beverage brands and their suppliers. Listed alphabetically, beverage brands will be tagged with functional attributes (i.e. energy, relaxation). Brands will be indexed according to function at the start of the guide.

It’s an interesting play in an expanding space: NEXT Proteins, the current project of Designer Whey and Detour Bar founder David Jenkins, is attempting to sell its collection of protein-centric…

With institutional investors getting a bad rap in beverages these days – the National Enquirer version of the complaint is they force you to juice your projections in order to get the deal done, then steal your company when you fail to hit those unrealistic targets – a lot of early-stage beverage companies have been in a quandary as to where else to turn once they’ve reached the limits of where friends-and-family and angels can take them.

The Coca-Cola Co. and Nestle have confirmed that Beverage Partners Worldwide — their 20-year partnership marketing Nestea in the U.S. has been fundamentally altered to focus away from North America.…

The Coca-Cola Co. will be offering a new cold-filled RTD tea made under the FUZE brand to its distribution network after ceding the declining Nestea brand to Nestle, its partner in the fraying Beverage Partners Worldwide joint venture, according to a report in Beverage Digest. The move would allow Nestle Waters North America to take over Nestea in the U.S., rolling it into an expanding tea platform that includes the Sweet Leaf and Tradewinds tea brands.

Well, considering that the energy drink business comprises about 95 percent of the company’s revenue, we don’t think there’s much of a shocker here, but Hansen’s Natural Corp. is changing…

The pressure on Indra Nooyi continues to mount as the embattled PepsiCo CEO is considering plans to lay off roughly 4,000 workers and end the company’s 401(k) match in order to boost profits and increase shareholder value, according to The New York Post. The Post – which reported last month that the cola giant was preparing to lay off about 1,000 workers - noted that a final decision on the moves could come within a matter of days, citing sources close to matter.