Coca-Cola has responded to the COVID-19 crisis with a touchless update to the company’s Freestyle fountain. Consumers can choose to scan a QR code with their smartphone camera and use their own phone screen to select and pour a beverage while bypassing the Freestyle’s touchscreen...

Kitu Life Super Coffee reached a major milestone in its relatively young life by securing a master distribution agreement...

Together, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper have pouring and marketing rights contracts covering 172 teams and racing tracks across the top US professional football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer and racing leagues (see table). PepsiCo and Coca-Cola also hold overall corporate sponsorships with five of those leagues. Virtually no soda is being poured amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ...

Coca-Cola Consolidated said it will begin construction this month on a $55 million, 400,000-square-foot automated warehouse and distribution center in the Indianapolis suburb of Whitestown. That will free up space

Analysts at Alliance Bernstein published a May 15 report predicting hotel trends in the post-COVID-19 era. Emerging technological trends are likely to accelerate and become fixtures of the hotel experience, the analysts predict. In the short-term, social distancing and safety measures will pervade...

PepsiCo has pushed deeper into ecommerce with two new direct-to-consumer websites selling core brands from Doritos to Gatorade. The websites are the product of a dedicated PepsiCo operating team of tech experts in Manhattan that are chasing consumer demand for online convenience. Industry watchers and PepsiCo bottlers are privately asking whether PepsiCo’s retail partners such as Walmart will view the direct-to-consumer initiative as a competitive threat. In addition, it appears PepsiCo won’t owe invasion fees to the company’s independent bottlers for products sold direct to consumers, which could create tension...

Since early March, BD has tracked the COVID-19 crisis through the eyes of beverage executives in the Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and independent bottling systems. By last week, a period of frenzied demand had given way to a more normalized sales pattern, bottlers and distributors said. Some are now bracing for...  Story includes direct comments from beverage bottlers and distributors.

After flying under the radar following its 2012 launch, Bang Energy sent a sonic boom across the US energy drink market during the past two years, surpassing an 8.0 dollar share in 2019. The brand, owned by Vital Pharmaceuticals (VPX), ignited what is now known as the “performance energy” segment, taking on established players such as Monster Energy by touting better ingredients, low or no sugar, and supplements such as creatine and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Under threat, Monster Beverage launched a counter-attack early last year with Reign Total Body Fuel, using the company’s partnership with Coca-Cola’s US bottling system to shower retail stores with incremental floor displays and c-store cooler placements. Fast forward a year and the threat posed by Bang may have subsided...