BD attended the Natural Products Expo West show last week at the Anaheim Convention Center & Arena outside Los Angeles. The event has become a showcase for products capitalizing on consumer health trends, which often evolve to mainstream appeal and drive acquisitions by large consumer products companies. Food and beverage offerings as usual dominated the show, which included more than 3,500 exhibitors spread across the equivalent of almost 10 football fields. Here’s an analysis of beverage themes and trends that emerged from this year’s show:

Last August, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated named Dave Katz president and COO. He spent 25 years preparing for the role. BD spoke to Katz about refranchising, competition with a reorganized PepsiCo beverages unit, methods to fuel revenue growth and even CBD.

In 2018, pricing gains for carbonated soft drinks offset volume declines and led to dollar growth for the first time since 2015. As the table below shows, rising carbonated soft drink (CSD) prices compensated for a -1.5% drop in volume, resulting in a +1.4% dollar increase

Coca-Cola is now more than six months past an option to buy cold-pressed juice maker Suja.

The number of convenience stores (c-stores) in the U.S. fell by -1.1% last year, driven in large part by a decrease in single-store operators, according to statistics reported recently

Coke has expanded tests of a lower-calorie flagship Coca-Cola variant launched in Mexico in 2017 (BD 10/6/17). The product

A group of California lawmakers have proposed a statewide excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages to help fund affordable healthcare initiatives. The move has been interpreted as retaliation for the industry’s successful maneuver last year

Sales of CBD-infused drinks reached $86 million in 2018 and will grow to more than $1.4 billion in 2023, Zenith Global and Beverage Digest have concluded in a joint report. Favorable federal regulation in the U.S. would...

Coca-Cola posted volume gains in a number of major markets in 2018, including Mexico, Brazil and China. The company’s West Africa and South Latin business units turned in declines.