• 🔍 BodyArmor’s Makeover
• 🚨 Breaking: Reed’s Names New CEO
• 🧑‍⚖️ Icelandic Glacial Co-Founder Owes $4.37M
• 🧪 Chemicals in the Water
• 🥃 Pernod Ricard Sales Slip
• 💸 A Funding Double Feature and Vertical Farming Follies

Consumers are eager for beverages with little to no added sugar… but not all sweeteners are considered equal. Cargill beverage experts offer targeted insights and solutions, including understanding consumer expectations, which sweeteners are finding favor, and Cargill's approach to sugar reduction. Learn more

There’s a new headline related to hemp beverages nearly everyday. But in the past week, several bev-alc trade groups have weighed in with their ideas on how the emerging set should evolve alongside other adult beverages.

Dueling memos illustrate that spirits producers – who have yet to jump en masse into the trendy and competing adult non-alc sector – are also not looking to hop on the hemp bandwagon, meanwhile the middle and retail tiers are looking for a piece of the pie.

One retail industry group, the American Beverage Licensees (ABL) trade association, is clearly aiming to get in on the action, arguing that intoxicating THC products should be sold only by businesses licensed to sell alcohol. 

Meanwhile, the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) – whose annual conference has been brimming with more hemp beverages in recent years – urged Congress this month to give it a bigger role, with:

• Policy that mirrors the alcohol industry, with states largely dictating their respective hemp beverage rules
• More transparency in the federal approach to regulation and clarification on how the category can be supported
• The WSWA noted that its support of the hemp drink set only stretches to naturally derived THC like Delta 9, leaving out Delta 8 and other synthetically derived intoxicating cannabinoids.

Have you gotten a contact high yet? The group representing distilled spirits (DISCUS) argued this week that:

• Hemp products in any form should be treated the same as marijuana products in terms of regulations, taxation and retailing.
• In the absence of federal regulation, states should work against the co-location of intoxicating hemp with booze. 

Over in the beer world, representatives also called for fairness and regulatory parity, especially as alcohol’s relation to health has been scrutinized during the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) process. 

That’s a lot to take in, so let’s try to roll it up into a digestible dose. Until recently, the bev-alc industry has remained pretty quiet on how hemp beverages should be distributed, sold and regulated in relation to beer, wine and liquor.

While some beer and spirits distributors filled their trucks with intoxicating hemp drinks, many states (Texas, California and Florida) have tried to tamp down access through legislation or executive orders.

Meanwhile, most hemp and cannabis beverage stakeholders and industry groups have lobbied on Capital Hill and in statehouses around the country, pushing for more oversight and clearer, reasonable enforcement guidelines similar to alcohol. 

With bev-alc stepping off the sidelines, will lawmakers change their tune? Send your thoughts to lsouthard@bevnet.com. 

BodyArmor unveiled its new look this morning with updated labels featuring updated ingredient callouts, a new wordmark and gladiator-themed icon. The sports drink also tweaked some of its formulations – reducing sugar in the core line and adding vitamin D and calcium to its low-calorie LYTE line.

🥊 The Coca-Cola Company-owned brand is working to reestablish itself as a category “challenger” amid rising competition in recent years.

😒 Electrolit has been nipping at the heels of Coke’s BodyArmor and Powerade brands, while newcomers like Mas+ By Messi, Barcode, PRIME, Recover 180 and PLEZi are all pulling in share with celebrity backers.

💭 “Given evolving trends and consumer needs, we recognize that now is the time to reintroduce ourselves with a visual identity that showcases who we’ve always been and where we’re going,” said BodyArmor VP of innovation Sabrina Niland.

Check out BodyArmor’s new visual identity on BevNET.

Ginger beverage producer Reed’s appointed Cyril Wallace as CEO this morning; Existing CEO Norman E. Snyder, Jr. will be retiring. The company also appointed Diageo Global VP of Marketing and Innovation (Smirnoff) Ruud Bakker to its board of directors. 

Icelandic Glacial co-founder Jon Olaffson is on the hook for $4.37 million. A U.S. District Court judge awarded the amount to Silvertip Capital, which claimed Olaffson failed to pay back a personally-guaranteed loan to support the water company in 2016.

• The complaint goes back to a $3.1 million loan by Silvertip to Baraka Investment Limited, a Hong Kong-based firm, which Olaffson personally guaranteed (with interest), according to court documents. 
• In an amended judgment, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ordered that 9% interest will accrue annually on the $4.37 million award until Silvertip is paid.
• A press release from MSD Lawyers (which led the litigation) teased a more salacious story about the hiring of a “former FBI agent” to track down “jet-setting” Olfasson, culminating with the Icelander being served a subpoena at 2 a.m. at the Beverly Hilton hotel. 
• Yet despite Olaffson’s ties to Icelandic Glacial (he remains a board member), it appears localized to his personal finances.

🔊 Longtime Icelandic Glacial global CEO Reza Mirza told BevNET on Wednesday: “Silvertip is not an investor in the company. This has no impact on the business in any way.” 

In other legal news: The reality of Monster Energy’s $272 million award may finally be settling in for former Vital Pharmaceuticals CEO Jack Owoc this week, after the Ninth Circuit ruled on Tuesday to affirm the judgement despite appeals that evidence had been improperly excluded in the 2022 trial.

Detectable levels of PFAS were found in 10 bottled water brands sold in the U.S. per the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But have no fear – none contained levels that would exceed the maximum contaminant levels set by the EPA for safe drinking water.

• Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) refers to a group of thousands of chemicals linked to significant health issues. The FDA has tightened its focus and upped testing for PFAS in food and drinks since 2019.
• This latest report on bottled waters tested 197 products purchased in the U.S. between 2023 and 2024. The 10 flagged drinks contained a range of 18 different types of PFAS,
• Brand names weren’t identified in the report, but the FDA said that eight out of the 10 were from domestic water sources – including spring, distilled and purified waters – while two were imported artesian waters from Fiji.

Pernod Ricard reported a 3% decline in third-quarter sales today, but the Jameson maker got a boost from U.S. wholesalers stocking up ahead of tariffs. 

📈 The win from stateside sales (+3% in Q3) was offset by tariffs elsewhere: Cognac sales in China – the group’s second-largest market – as well as the suspension of Chinese duty-free sales of cognac, all impacted sales. 

🍸 In the U.S., Jameson Irish whiskey and Absolut saw “improving performances” led by the vodka brand’s ready-to-drink collaboration with Ocean Spray.

🔙 Facing tariffs in China, plus a 10% to possible 20% tariff on products coming into the U.S., the group scaled back organic net sales expectations to a low single-digit decline for the year.

Catch Up: Industry Battles Tariffs Uncertainty, Anti-Alcohol Trends at DISCUS

This week, the podcast team is discussing a pair of functional beverage funding rounds and tackling the topic of vertical farming.

🥤 What do Culture Pop and Ryl Tea have in common? Both brands raked in about $15 million to support significant expansion plans this year.

🥬 Vertical farming has seemingly struggled to live up to the hype and heaps of cash flowing to the sector in its early days. The team digs into how startups are refocusing now that funding has dried up.

Click here to listen to this week’s episode. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.