Riding a wave of increased investment and momentum, PepsiCo’s North American bottling system convened in June to discuss marketing and distribution plans for 2022. Bottling executives from the independent Pepsi system and company-owned operations attended the virtual meeting. Despite supply issues in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mood was upbeat, representing an optimism unmatched in recent years, sources told BD. This story is based on information from people who attended the meeting. This year...

PepsiCo’s independent beverage bottlers in the US have reported a patchwork of product out-of-stocks at a time of rising consumer demand within...

Topo Chico Hard Seltzer, produced and marketed by Molson Coors under an agreement with Coca-Cola, continues to gain traction in the US despite a highly competitive market and signs of...

Annually, BD publishes estimated volume and value sales data for the US liquid refreshment beverages (LRB) market, as well as categories including carbonated soft drinks (CSD), and energy drinks. The data included in this special issue estimates beverage consumption for all measured and unmeasured channels, including packaged retail, fountain, and vending. This report focuses on single-serve, direct-store- delivered (DSD) beverages. The fountain channel includes everything from restaurants, such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell, to sports venues.

PepsiCo’s recent extension of Gatorade Zero into a protein-infused variant may be just the start of the brand as a functional platform. “I do think there is future functionality we can do with G Zero,” Gatorade SVP and General Manager Brett O’Brien said in a recent interview...

Iris Nova made a name for itself selling ready-to-drink functional lemon water by text message in a process founder Zak Normandin called “conversational commerce.” The company attracted the attention of Coca-Cola, which made a minority investment two and a half years ago. Normandin later added other owned and outside non-alcoholic brands to Iris Nova’s direct-to-consumer platform, which had begun with Dirty Lemon. Now he has his sights set on the alcohol beverage business, Normandin told BD in a recent interview.

Coke will discontinue Coca-Cola Energy in the US and Canada by the end of this year, BD has learned, and the company has confirmed. The cola-flavored energy drink didn’t perform as expected in the US after its debut a year and a half ago, just ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic. As conditions in the US improved this year, sales for Coca-Cola Energy ...

Consumer Interest in Single-Serve Beverage Mixes on The Rise. “The pandemic accelerated this whole idea of ‘enhance my water.’” One brand that stands to gain from an increasing and potentially disruptive consumer acceptance of single-serve beverage mixes is Nuun (pronounced Noon). The 16-year-old hydration brand is among a number of just-add-water mixes that have translated functionality to a powdered domain previously focused more on lemonade, punch and tea. Growth for single-serve beverage mixes will be driven by:

As Covid Subsides, Challenges Remain for Coke and Pepsi Bottlers. Since the US outbreak of the COVID-19 virus more than a year ago, BD has tracked the crisis through the eyes of beverage executives in the Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and independent bottling systems. Our latest informal survey asked bottlers what has improved and what they continue to grapple with on the way to a new normal that has yet to be defined. The following is a synopsis of contributions from more than a dozen bottling executives...