Alpha-Diver and Beverage Digest are pleased to unveil the industry’s first comprehensive psychology-based ranking of consumer beverage brands – The BEV50. The study was conducted by neuro-market researchers at Alpha-Diver in partnership with Beverage Digest to help beverage companies understand the WHY of consumer behavior. In this exclusive webinar, registrants will learn...

PepsiCo’s Gatorade and Propel brands are diving into the beverage tablet segment made popular in recent years by Nestle-owned Nuun. Starting in June, the brands will offer dissolvable tablets in plastic tubes of ten that will go head-to-head with Nuun, which offers similarly-packaged functional tablets for everything from sport hydration and immunity to...

Liquid I.V., the powdered water enhancer acquired by Unilever in 2020, is closing in on $1 billion in net sales, according to the company. The brand will reach the milestone in the “near future,” the company said, while declining to define that timeframe. The “hydration multiplier,” which promises to hydrate as much as 2.5 times faster than water and is used by some consumers as a hangover remedy, is the largest single-serve drink mix brand on the market with a...

The buzz around artificial intelligence is growing louder, and companies want to know whether this tech will actually help them in their work. Launched in November, ChatGPT has given mainstream users access to a form of A.I. that can create everything from poetry to legal briefs. This kind of machine learning has broad implications for companies and brands, including within the beverage sector. ChatGPT’s potential to disrupt caused a “code red” inside Google, according to the New York Times. Setting aside the important debate around the efficacy and ethics of A.I., the following story is intended to help make sense of the current hype surrounding GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) technology...

Brand Backed By Former Hedge Fund Owner, Major League Pickleball Founder

Richard’s Rainwater has spent the last couple of years making sure the brand won’t be ignored. Fresh off a 2021 Series A funding round that was north of $10 million, the Austin, Texas-based packager of actual rainwater has been expanding shelf presence at retailers including Kroger, Albertson’s and HEB, adding production capacity, and executing an aggressive publicity campaign. If you hadn’t heard of the still nascent brand previously, you’d be...

Darren Rovell, the journalist, investor, and social media influencer who wrote the literal book on Gatorade, is bringing heat to the fast-growing canned cocktail market. Rovell, who has 2 million Twitter followers and is credited with introducing the late Kobe Bryant to BodyArmor co-founder Mike Repole, had his lightbulb moment 10 months ago while drinking spicy cocktails. That inspiration has since led to a brand called KickStand Cocktails and a newly landed $2 million investment round. The ready-to-drink cocktail blends vodka and fruit juice with artisanal spice, which Rovell says is the key differentiator. KickStand enters a canned cocktail market that is expected to grow by an average of +11.6% through 2032, according to researcher Future Market Insights. As consumers move on from the hard seltzer craze to...

Argo Tea Co-founder Arsen Avakian was struck by how often consumers in store aisles pulled out a cell phone while browsing a drink cooler. When he asked why, he learned they were researching brands to understand everything from ingredients to provenance. With a background in technology, Avakian had a...

BD recently wrote about the U.S. launch of Air Up, the German maker of a refillable bottle that uses pods to flavor plain water by smell instead of taste. PepsiCo is an investor in the company, which describes its technology, based on a scientific concept called “retronasal smell,” this way: “The flavored air travels from your mouth up to your olfactory center, where it’s perceived as flavor.” From packaging to materials, Air Up embodies an assortment of beverage trends that resonate with Gen Z and Millennial consumers: Healthfulness, design, personalization, technology, and sustainability. To better understand the Air Up offering, BD bought and used the product, which the...

Nestled in Winchester, Kentucky just outside Lexington and less than three miles from the Bluegrass Heritage Museum, craft soda maker Ale-8-One Bottling is a microcosm of the complex...