Beverage Digest hosted its annual Future Smarts conference last December in New York City. The day’s lineup of speakers included leaders from three of the largest US beverage companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper. The executives sat for interviews on stage with Beverage Digest Editor & Publisher Duane Stanford. Here are highlights as the speakers looked ahead to 2025...

Brand Coca-Cola posted a surprising sudden decline at US retail in the four weeks ending Feb. 23, according to multi-channel Circana data published by Evercore ISI. The drop coincides with social media calls for a boycott of the brand among Hispanic consumers. The boycott appears to have...

As Coca-Cola begins the national rollout of its Simply Pop prebiotic soda, a flood of other brands are announcing gut pops of their own. They include Popwell by Talking Rain, Bloom Pop by Keurig Dr Pepper partner brand Bloom Nutrition, and Daytrip Prebiotic Soda by the maker of CBD sodas. Meanwhile, Halfday prebiotic tea has rebranded. And, on an adjacent front, Spindrift has launched a ...

PepsiCo Beverages North America has struck an agreement with contract packager Niagara for the production and distribution of Aquafina case pack bottled water in the US, PBNA has confirmed to BD. Niagara will produce...

Back in mid-2023, I wrote about a group called Save Tab Soda. They were cajoling Coca-Cola to revive the saccharin-sweetened diet cola that was discontinued in 2020 after almost 60 years on the market. Save Tab Soda went so far as to buy billboard space near Coke’s Atlanta headquarters to beg, “Please bring it back.” I referred to the Save Tab effort as quixotic. I still think it is.

That said, the tenacity and dedication of this band of hardcore fans and its followers is impressive. Just this past December, the group sent me a spiral bound 2025 Dreaming of Tab Calendar, with images of Tab in various holiday settings. They also shared “market research” and a survey of 206 people that they used to predict an initial market opportunity of almost $43 million should Tab return...

Retailers Amazon, Walmart, Costco Rose as Shoppers Sought Value, Online Convenience

Shares of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper all underperformed the S&P 500 Index and the Consumer Staples Index in 2024. As shown in the table below, Coca-Cola was the only one of the three companies to post a gain. Top-3 energy drink makers...