While shares in Keurig Green Mountain fell sharply after bosses unveiled the $299-$369 price tag for the new Keurig Kold machine (99c-$1.29 per pod), CEO Brian Kelley said purchase intent scores were high as consumers understood the value proposition.
VitaminFIZZ – a new zero-calorie enhanced sparkling water backed by former Red Bull executives and other beverage industry veterans – is now available in 1,400+ stores in the US nine months after launch, and is about to enter the UK market.
Innocent Drinks is stretching beyond its smoothie comfort zone with a sparkling juice variant and blended coconut water to inject life into the health and wellness aisle, it says.
Frito-Lay CEO Tom Greco insists snacks and beverages occupy common ‘demand spaces’, and PepsiCo’s ‘Better Together’ approach gives it the scale to outpace its rivals at retail level.
Coca-Coca Enterprises boss John Brock says detractors ‘don’t understand’ how safe aspartame is, and insists that diet soda sales remain strong – growth for Coke Zero offset a 5.5% full year volume slide for Diet Coke.
PepsiCo is rolling out its mid-calorie cola Pepsi True at selected retailers in Denver, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. following a soft launch on Amazon to assess demand.
Will Pepsi True & Coca-Cola Life revitalize the cola market, or are today’s more demanding and sophisticated consumers looking for more than refreshment and ‘no-artificial’ claims from their beverage calories these days?
PepsiCo brand Mountain Dew Kickstart tells us its two new flavor lines with higher juice content, coconut water and slightly less caffeine are targeted at a core ‘cross cultural millennial male’ consumer.
Here’s what made the headlines during the working week commencing Monday January 19 2015, in our new section Beverage Bites, which brings you the best bite-sized beverage news.
Mars recently applied to patent a special single-serve beverage capsule it said would give more consistent dosing and less wastage of functional ingredients – from flavonoids and vitamins to minerals, antioxidants.
Coke plans to cut at least 1,600 jobs globally including 500 roles at its Atlanta HQ – as the company ploughs on with a $3bn cost-cutting drive announced after an October profit warning.
Zenith International's 2015 Global Soft Drinks Congress has the theme 'Thirst for Change', and its program includes leading players such as Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Talking Rain and the American Beverage Association.
Keurig Green Mountain and Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS) have struck a deal to develop products for the hotly-anticipated Keurig Cold at-home beverage system, following Keurig’s 2014 deal to work with Coca-Cola on the Cold platform.
As voted for by you the readers - effectively - and checked by us on Google Analytics, here are our Top 10 most read news stories of 2014 – from Constellation Brands attracting the ire of craft brewers to Dr Pepper’s stevia trials.
Wells Fargo Securities analysts say plant-based beverages are a ‘unique growth opportunity’ and believe a partnership with WhiteWave Foods would bring Coke several important strategic benefits.
Diet soda is in a funk, while 'real sugar' is back in vogue. Energy is hot, but caffeine is still controversial. Maple water is bang-on-trend, but will it really become the next coconut water?
Canadean research organisation has released its top trends for 2015 claiming due to the large number of products available on the supermarket shelves many brands are in danger of fading into the background.
In-depth on carbonates with Euromonitor International
Carbonates will never return to the buzz of the 80s but beverage makers can inject life back into the category from side-stepping into the water aisle to bottling up retro-style or moving into new day parts, says Euromonitor International.
BIG Cola insists global brands don’t need a presence in the US or Europe as it says it competes with the likes of Coke and Pepsi by 'democratizing consumption' with fairly priced quality products.
Abu Dhabi-based food and beverage giant Agthia Group says the bottled waters industry faces a challenge to persuade UAE consumers to swop soft drinks for water as a ‘natural rehydrator’.
Coca-Cola Amatil said today it plans to cut 260 jobs as part of AUD $100m cost-cutting campaign aimed at boosting profitability in its struggling Australian soft drinks business.
From Bowser Beer for dogs and a Japanese sports drink targeting a moon landing, to CSDs with jelly and China’s ban on ‘vampire drinks’ – 2014’s seen its fair share of wacky beverage news.
SPECIAL EDITION 2014, BEVERAGE SWEETENER INNOVATION
David Thorrold, CEO of the world’s largest monk fruit extract supplier BioVittoria insists the sweetener can complement rival stevia to achieve a better-tasting product – as the experience of successful zero-calorie US soft drinks brand Zevia shows.
SPECIAL EDITION 2014, BEVERAGE SWEETENER INNOVATION
Almendra says Europe’s beverage industry has been ‘particularly victimized’ by poor quality stevia to date as the company works to rewrite the narrative dismissing Reb A alone as a crude first-generation stevia.
The global beverage sector is thriving - driven by dynamic and creative individuals around the world. But do you or a colleague have what it takes to be recognized by your industry peers?
CEO ALAN CLARK INSISTS SOFT DRINKS CENTRAL TO SAB GROWTH STRATEGY
The Coca-Cola Company and SAB Miller have inked a deal to combine their non-alcoholic bottling operations in Southern and East Africa into a $2.9bn turnover business that will accelerate sales in 12 high-growth countries.
Bai Brands CEO Ben Weiss says the Dr Pepper allied brand will hit $50m in sales this year and puts this down to a focus on ‘distribution at the expense of brand equity’ during the early ‘basement’ years.
Rexam tells BeverageDaily.com it is pursuing business in the dairy drinks segment and says one notable success to date was lemonade flavored milkshake MIO in Russia.
With Day Two of Brau Beviale in full swing, we worked in a whistlestop tour of the Crown BevCan Europe & Middle East stand, exploring the company’s Smartcan and Instant Win innovations.
Coca-Cola Hellenic’s CEO says the firm is keen to take Monster Energy into new markets, as its lackluster performance in developed markets led by Italy hit summer soda sales.
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) says it is too early to ‘declare victory’ with stevia-sweetened cola Coca-Cola Life after September launches in Britain and Sweden.
As PepsiCo inks a deal with SodaStream to test launch its brands on the platform, Euromonitor analyst Jonas Feliciano says demand for such Pepsi-branded products is ‘debatable’.
As one analyst suggests that Dr Pepper Snapple Group has hit a ‘home run’ with Mexican mineral water brand Penafiel, the company says it hopes to increase distribution in the US.
Coke appears to be capitulating to the ‘new normal’ operating environment by lowering its revenue and volume growth targets, according to one financial analyst, while disaffected investor David Winters claims there is 'failure and disarray'...
Helene Möller, product manager for ingredients at WILD Flavors, tells BeverageDaily.com that energy drinks is the category with the most possibilities for innovation.
Coke's Net Income FELL 14% to $2.12bn in Q3 2014 ending September 26
The Coca-Cola Company CEO Muhtar Kent will today identify value-added dairy as a top target category for still beverage retail value growth through to 2020.
INTERVIEW WITH MOSHY COHEN: VP, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING
Royal Crown Cola International (RCCI) caused a stir in 2013 when it launched stevia-sweetened RC Cola Neo. Here VP for business development and marketing, Moshy Cohen, tells us what the firm looks for in a franchise bottler.
As the news broke yesterday that Pepsi had launched a new craft cola, or 'kola' as the hipster spelling has it, we run the rule over a launch that excites us greatly - albeit not as much as the moon landings or the end of apartheid.
PURE LIFE EXOTICS LAUNCH FLAVORED WITH NATURAL FRUIT ESSENCES
Nestle Waters tells BeverageDaily.com it designed new flavored sparkling waters range Nestle Pure Life Exotics to provide a ‘taste delivery’ as similar as possible to sodas without using sugar or artificial sweeteners.
As American phenomenon Sparkling Ice strives to become a $1bn beverage brand by 2018, one analyst says she thinks the eye-watering target is realistic.
REFERRAL FOLLOWS JULY DECISION ON NESTLE WATERS COMPLAINTS
The National Advertising Division has referred Sparkling Ice to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) claiming that the brand failed to comply with a determination that its advertising was misleading.
Food producers should look at the current obesity crisis as an opportunity to do good business and do good for public health through the reformulation of mass-market products, says one nutrition policy expert.
FOCUS ON…SPARKLING WATERS IN THE US: RAKHEE BURGESS, INSIGHT ANALYST, CANADEAN
As sparkling water sales soar in the States, Canadean analyst Rakhee Burgess tells us flavor variation is vital and the reasons why Crystal Geyser is the leader of the pack.
