• 🥳 Pretty Tasty Wins New Beverage Showdown
• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Sips
• 🫖 DAVIDsTEA Launches RTDs
• 👹 Monster: More Pricing, Promo In the Forecast
• 🇨🇦 GURU Grows in Q2
• 🥤 MrBeast Is Heading Into Beverage

BevNET Live Summer 2024’s second day saw speakers take to the stage with advice on everything from raising new capital to successfully building a brand platform. The day brought beverage leaders from all corners of the industry who shared nuanced advice about how to win in retail while imparting how they overcame challenges to grow their respective businesses.

In an insightful panel during the morning session a trio of black founder/CEOs – Pauline Idogho of Mocktail Club, Karl Williams of Uncle Waithley’s, and Quentin Vennie of Equitea – shared how they view the many paths to success for BIPOC beverage brands.

Despite facing more challenges to raise institutional capital, the three entrepreneurs discussed the importance of having a “challenger mindset.” They agreed that creating communities that speak to a broad base of consumers has helped yield positive results for their respective brands.

“We never started from an equal playing field, and yet we're still here,” Vennie said.

Later in the day, Aura Bora founder Paul Voge presented the many ways emerging drink companies can garner investor interest at different stages of growth. Over the course of his brand’s five investment rounds, Voge has pulled in over $10 million by developing relationships and persevering through disappointments. At times, he said the process can be like dating.

“You don't expect to get to know someone well on the first date. This is the same thing,” he said.

The last session of the day dove into the fast-growing cannabis category with Delta Emerald Ventures founder and CIO Ian Dominguez and Aaron Nosbisch, founder of BRĒZ and LUCYD.

The two cannabis industry experts spoke about why the continued melding of canna-beverages with the bev-alc category makes sense to growing THC drinks. They dug into why increased regulatory scrutiny right now might feel like a setback, but emphasized it is all part of the category normalization process. 

Enjoy a refreshing Taste of the Islands with each sip of the leading lemonade brand, Calypso. Offering over a dozen tropical varieties of lemonade, limeade and zero sugar flavors, Calypso was made for bringing out your best island self. Calypso can be found nationwide at leading retailers. Learn more

Pretty Tasty emerged victorious in the New Beverage Showdown 27 yesterday, joining an elite cohort of past beverage brand winners including Cann, Health-Ade and many more.

🍵 Founded in 2024 by Scarlett Leung, Pretty Tasty produces a line of ready-to-drink teas and ready-to-mix blends formulated with collagen peptides to support skin, hair, joint and nail care. 

🍋 Available in four flavors – Peach, Raspberry, Lemon and Original Black – each 12 oz. can has 10 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen protein peptides, while each stick pack contains 9 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen protein peptides.

💭 “Pretty Tasty really sits at the intersection of beauty and functional beverages. The trends show that functional beverages, ingestible beauty and lower caffeine options are really up and coming and so there was a ripe opportunity for us,” said Leung during yesterday’s final round.

Read the full recap of the showdown on BevNET.

Today is Friday and you all know what that means…it’s new product gallery time! We’ve rounded up the hottest new products and packaged them together right here, just for you. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

🥛 Califia Farms expands its portfolio of plant-based milk products with the addition of Complete Kids. The new offering – made with a blend of pea protein, chickpea protein and fava bean protein – features 8 grams of protein and 50 mg of DHA Omega- 3 per serving.

🇺🇲 Just in time for the Fourth of July, MTN DEW launches three new red, white and blue offerings: Star Spangled Splash, Freedom Fusion and Liberty Chill.

🤝 Functional protein brand The EVERY Company has teamed up with wellness products producer Landish to create a line of ready-to-mix powders under the new FERMY brand. Both products – Protein Coffee Enhancer and Protein Matcha Latte – are powered by EVERY’s vegan egg white protein. 

Check out the full gallery on BevNET.

In continuation of its mission to make tea more accessible across Canada, DAVIDsTEA this week made its first foray into the ready-to-drink category with a three-SKU line of sparkling cold brew teas.

🥤 Offered in Magic Potion, Organic Cream of Earl Grey and Organic Queen of Tarts flavors, the cold brew tea comes in 12 oz. cans priced at $3.99 each. The RTDs are available in single cans at DAVIDsTEA stores and on the brand’s website for $14.99 per 4-pack.

👀 Looking ahead, CEO Sarah Segal said DAVIDsTEA is “very open” to more RTD line extensions with zero sugar and caffeine-free attributes. But for now, the brand is focused on receiving feedback from consumers already familiar with the brand before expanding into grocery stores and other retailers.

💭 “We always feel the best test is our customer network when it comes to getting feedback. Luckily, we have this network of stores where we can test affordably and that’s a really big advantage,” said Segal.

Check out the full story on BevNET.

Monster Energy is betting on the summer season to help heat up anemic sales growth, telling shareholders yesterday that its c-store slowdown will reverse with the arrival of new Bang and Reign innovations. 

💸 The brand’s optimism is reflected in plans to raise prices 5% across the core U.S. portfolio, indicating  it’s “not concerned about the near-term slowdown” per coverage from Jefferies. 

❌ But those hikes won’t apply to Bang and Reign Storm, both of which will benefit from vigorous promotion in search of trial and awareness in the coming months. Core portfolio promo levels will be unchanged year-over-year. That “raises the execution bar” for Celsius, which Jefferies no longer believes will increase prices. 

Canadian energy drink manufacturer GURU posted its fifth consecutive quarter of top line growth during its Q2 2024 earnings this week, citing that sales growth is coming primarily from the U.S. club and ecommerce channels.

• Net revenue was up 19% in the quarter, with U.S. club and online sales jumping 143% year-over-year. 
• Earnings were negatively impacted by inventory adjustments by the brand’s Canadian distributor – which was unspecified in the press release but the company has exclusive deal with PepsiCo up north. Still, president and CEO Carl Goyette said that “underlying demand” for the brand “remains strong in most of our sales channels.”
• Goyette said the company is also looking to accelerate its “return to historical profitability,” noting the company has a “long runway for self-funded growth” with $38.2 million in liquidities and credit facilities.

🍑 The brand’s latest innovations, Peach Mango Punch and its first zero sugar flavor, Zero Wild Berry, debuted in Quebec during the quarter. The launch led to a “record-breaking performance in a leading grocery banner,” Goyette said, but didn’t specify which chain. 

Unless Jimmy Donaldson plans to partner with Monster, the Youtube star can’t name his new beverage the Beast Unleashed. Despite that unfortunate setback, MrBeast is reportedly planning to launch a drink platform in 2025, Business Insider reports.

🍫 After leveraging his creator profile to build chocolate snacks business Feastables, which relaunched earlier this year, Donaldson is preparing to enter a new CPG arena with a beverage line, according to a recent court filing.

💻 The impending launch is expected to be paired with a new gaming platform business as well,  tapping into MrBeast’s platform of 279 million Youtube subscribers.