• 🆕 This Week's New Products
• 🏀 Knicks Player Joins Mela 
• 🥊 Paul vs. Messi Match Heats Up
• 🧸 Minor Figures Makes A New Friend
• 🍕 How A ‘Better’ Brand Did A Deal With Disney. Plus, Pro Hugs & Pizza Wine.

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San Francisco-based flavored water brand Hint announced it has landed two seasoned beverage executives as new leaders for the company. 

Former ZOA Energy CEO Michael Pengue has been named Hint’s new CEO, succeeding Blair Owens in the role. Kevin Benmoussa will take over the CFO spot. Both appointments are effective immediately.

Along with the new leadership team, Hint also announced it had secured new funding to “support growth and expansion” through additional working capital. Details on the new funding were not disclosed.

“My first priority is to reinvigorate the enthusiasm for this leading brand. This is a vibrant category, and Hint’s proposition has never been more on-trend than it is today,” Pengue told BevNET. “There are significant opportunities to bring new users into the brand through innovation and brand messaging. We will also look to unlock further efficiencies in our operations.”

Pengue led the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-fronted energy drink (recently acquired by Molson Coors) for two years; he also brings nearly 30 years of experience at multinational companies like Nestlé Waters North America, Danone and Keurig Dr Pepper. Benmoussa most recently served as EVP and CFO of cultured meat startup Aleph Farms in addition to holding executive finance roles at Vita Coco, Nestlé Waters North America and PepsiCo.

Hint is no stranger to leadership changes, Hint abruptly removed its founding wife-and-husband team, Kara and Theo Goldin, in November 2021. The board appointed then-SVP of beverage Blair Owens as the interim CEO and COO (Owens would take on the CEO role permanently in 2022). At the time, it was reported that the company might be eyeing an exit.

The Goldins went on to sue their former company over wrongful termination, alleging Hint’s board was retaliating against the pair.

Go Deeper: Kara Goldin Replaced as CEO Amid Exec Shakeup

It’s less than a week until Thanksgiving, but there’s plenty of new drinks for consumers to try alongside their turkey and stuffing in this week’s new products gallery.

🥛 Hoping for a latte to compliment your family’s pecan pie? Pecan milk brand PKN has launched PKN JOY Barista, a coffee-friendly dairy alternative made from upcycled pecans. The product is now available on PLN’s website for $15.99 per 2-pack of 32 oz. cartons.

☕ Caffeine-craving consumers could try making their pecan lattes with the latest seasonal launch from Death Wish Coffee Co. The energizing coffee brand is introducing a new Peppermint Mocha flavored coffee, available in 9 oz. ground bags for $13.99 and 10-count pod packs for $12.99.

🍸 After dinner, there’s new NA adult options from Three Spirit, with its Extra Spicy Functional Botanical Elixir, and Little Saints, which has launched non-alcoholic gin alternative St. Juniper.

Insiders can read the full gallery later today on BevNET.

Watermelon water brand Mela announced that NBA star Josh Hart has joined the company as a brand partner to help the canned juice business grow deeper in the New York market. Although, Hart has not invested cash in Mela (Hart is an investor in Lemon Perfect), the company will use his name, image and likeness in activations and marketing campaigns in exchange for equity.

🏪 The brand has taken a broad distribution strategy, lining up a 6,500-store partnership with 7-Eleven in April as it targets wide growth in convenience and mass channels.

🥥 Mela has seen demand from not only fitness-minded consumers looking for a juice-based, hydration drink but use occasions as a mixer or an alternative to sugar-laden sodas.

⬆️ Dollar sales were up 106.9% to $5.3 million in the last 52-week period ending November 6, according to Circana data. During the period, unit sales were 98.9%, the highest of tracked brands in the canned juice category.

Learn more about Mela’s distribution strategy and how it hopes to leverage its new brand partners’s reach in New York.

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Jake Paul may have just defeated former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, but his brother Logan’s battle with a different sports icon is just getting started.

🎯 Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime Hydration is hitting back at Mark Anthony Brands’ Más+ by Messi, a sports drink developed in collaboration with soccer legend Lionel Messi, claiming that visual similarities between the brands is creating consumer confusion.

📝 The legal filing is in response to a lawsuit from Mark Anthony Brands, best known as the maker of White Claw, which alleged that Prime had threatened legal action against the business and wanted a court declaration that Más+ was not infringing Prime’s trademarks.

💬 In the document, Prime included social media posts to show that consumers are seeing “obvious” similarities between the brands due to their similar bottle shape and saturated color palettes. 

⚽ Further complicating the matter, Prime has been actively seeking out partnership deals with pro soccer teams, including Messi’s own “alma mater,” as the filing puts it, FC Barcelona, which it argued could increase the chances of confusion.

🎨 Mark Anthony Brands is standing by its design choices. A lawyer for the company told Law360 that Prime’s allegations were baseless and that it wanted to “put an end to Prime Hydration’s anticompetitive threats.”

Go Deeper: Prime Movers: As Logan Paul’s Brand Stutters, Supplement Makers and Soccer’s Biggest Star Seek Their Own Sports Drink Fortunes

It can be hard to break out of the competitive field of plant-based milks, but you can’t knock Minor Figures for their ambition, as reflected in latest collaboration with artist Andrew Rae to create a neo-pop collectible Art Toy, the perfect (and probably unexpected) holiday gift for the coffee-loving, oat milk-frothing barista in your life.

Desired as an sculpture that “merges the playfulness of childlike figurines with the aesthetic of coffee counterculture,” the oversized, mirror-polished statue – a person in a duck costume, for lack of better description – stands at 10.6 inches tall and can be yours for a cool $300. Limited quantities are available – sign up to access the invite-only gallery link before they’re all gone.

Collaborations – including a tomato-based wine co-created by Pizza Hut, a marketing campaign featuring a partnership between sex workers and a non-alcoholic spirit brand, and a partnership between candy startup Better Sour and Disney – anchor this episode.

Listen to the episode now.