Coca-Cola has appointed a new president of its Red Tree Beverages ready-to-drink alcohol business in the US. This comes as both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have announced rum and cola canned cocktail launches as part of a new front in the cola wars...

Coca-Cola’s Red Tree Beverages is planning a spring launch of the US alcohol unit’s first wine-based product, named Minute Maid Spiked. The drink was developed for the large percentage of legal drinking age consumers who regularly mix alcohol into non-alcoholic juice and juice drinks, including Minute Maid products, Red Tree President Jenny Dowdy said in an interview. “We saw this as a ...

What’s better: a Blue Cloud, or a Red Tree?

For the past decade, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have diverged in the US when it comes to soft drink distribution strategy. Coke owns no soda distribution operations, leaving that in recent years to independent franchised bottlers. On the other hand, PepsiCo owns and operates most of its US bottling distribution system. Now that both companies are seeking a growth path through alcoholic beverages, their strategies in the US have diverged once again.

As you’ll read in today’s issue, PepsiCo is going all-in on the distribution of alcoholic beverages such as Hard Mtn Dew with its Blue Cloud Distribution subsidiary. The company appears...