• ☕ Florence By Mills Enters RTD
• 👋 Meet Nombase
• 🇺🇸 Inside MAHA’s M&A Effect
• 🥃 Next Century Acquires Bleu Chair Bay
• 🤝 Monster Co-CEO Reveals Exit Date
• 🛒 The Fresh Market's Spirit & Wine Store
• 🧑🏽‍💻 eGrocery Sales Up Double-Digits
• 🥃 Finding Whitespace – And A $600 Million Brand – In The ‘Wilderness’

IFPC provides a broad ingredient portfolio, custom blends, and expert formulation support to optimize your beverage production. With nationwide distribution and our GFSI-certified blending facility, Aviator, we streamline sourcing and enhance efficiency—helping you create better beverages, faster. Learn more

It’s only Tuesday – you didn’t think we were done with Expo West news already, did you? In our latest update, we hear from a handful of seasoned coffee brands about tweaks to their strategy and product assortment as they aim to stay relevant amidst a sea of new-age functional and energy alternatives. That includes: 

💪 Having tamed and trimmed its unwieldy portfolio, a refocused Super Coffee is launching Protein+, a line of protein-boosted (25 grams) coffees in 12 oz. PET bottles and TetraPak 4-packs as it goes after category leaders CORE Power, Premier Protein and Muscle Milk. 

🆕 Coming up on 15 years since its launch, Chameleon Coffee has proved resilient amidst changing ownership and shifting category trends. Now, parent company SYSTM Foods figures it is a good time for a brand update.

🙏 After a couple of false starts, Death Wish is backing its revamped, clean ingredient formulations to put it back in the RTD mix. 

🧠 Gym Weed is one of the more striking brand names you’ll find in beverage, but perhaps not the most intuitive to most consumers. We have a first look at its new branding and packaging.  

Insiders can access the full post-show recap from Expo West.

Florence By Mills Coffee – the coffee brand founded by “Stranger Things” actress Millie Bobby Brown – is debuting in ready-to-drink with the launch of dairy milk lattes at Walmart.

🥤 Offered in four flavors – Original Chill, Vanilla Bliss, Mocha Delight and Caramel Drizzle – each 11 oz. can contains approximately 70 mg of caffeine and retails for $2.48, a price point the brand said makes it broadly accessible. 

💭 “There’s a lot going on in the coffee space and the creator-led space. The big standout for us is we try to make the price point better. You’ll find that on-shelf, we’re probably going to be undercutting most other iced coffee brands,” said Danny Wright, founder and CEO of Collab Coffee, which produces Florence By Mills Coffee. 

Insiders can learn more about how the launch fuels the brand’s growth strategy in the full story on BevNET. 

Introducing Nombase, powered by BevNET, a new platform built to support professionals across the food, beverage, beer, spirits, health, and beauty industries. 

Whether you’re looking for trusted industry partners, AI-powered insights, timely discussions, or the latest company news and job opportunities – Nombase brings it all together in one place. 

Best of all, it’s free to explore, with added AI benefits for our BevNET, Nosh, and Brewbound insiders.

Check it out now.

Brothers International delivers premium fruit ingredients from the world’s finest growing regions. We supply juices, purees, concentrates, and IQF fruits to top food and beverage brands, backed by decades-long grower partnerships for consistent quality, exceptional service, and scalable solutions. Learn more

Manna Tree managing partner Ross Iverson has seen how industry winds can change the appetite for M&A and exit strategies during his decades of business building, but as the MAHA movement sweeps across CPG, how could changing demands manifest within the deals space?

🤔 We sat down with Iverson to learn about who he believes will be the biggest winners, how food policy and regulation impact the M&A market and exit strategies for emerging brands and whether or not the MAHA era will have a lasting effect on the industry.

🗣️What he said: “The opportunity to continue reshaping the food industry is significant – about $1 in every $20 spent globally is now on wellness. We believe there has never been a more pivotal time to support brands that empower consumers with products they can trust.”

Insiders can access our full interview with Iverson for all of the details.

In other MAHA-related news: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s office put out a statement on Monday that it would “explore potential rulemaking” on revising the Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) process to eliminate the self-affirmed (read: the most common) option. 

Next Century Spirits (NCS) is bringing rum into its portfolio, announcing the acquisition of Blue Chair Bay Rum, a premium rum brand backed by Tennessee songwriter Kenny Chesney.

• North Carolina-based Next Century Spirits (NCS) serves as both a spirits and a marketing company producing for private label and its own family of brands. 
• Portfolio brands include fast-growing Seth MacFarlane-backed Bear Fight and Caddy Clubhouse Cocktails. 
• In 2022, NCS acquired XED Beverages, the maker of cocktail-inspired hard seltzer brand Sesh and in 2023 purchased a minority stake in ready-to-drink (RTD) brand Vide, which is backed by model and actor Olivia Culpo.
• Chesney, who is the first country act to headline the Vegas' Sphere starting in May, will continue as one of NCS’s largest percentage owners.

The post-Rodney Sacks Era has a start date. Monster Energy confirmed in a transition letter on Monday that the longtime executive will exit as co-CEO on June 12, making way for co-CEO Hilton Schlosberg to take sole possession of the role. 

• Upon resigning as Co-CEO, Sacks, 75, will remain Chairman through the end of 2026, subject to elections and collect a base annual salary of $900,000. 
• Per the letter, he’ll be “responsible for strategic direction over the Corporation’s marketing, innovation, and litigation efforts” in conjunction with the board. 
• The announcement clarifies speculation around Monster’s succession plan, revealed last May during an earnings review. 
• Sacks and Schlosberg acquired beverage manufacturer Hansen Natural Corporation in 1990, with the former serving as CEO until joined by Schlosberg in 2021.

Specialty supermarket chain The Fresh Market is expanding into wine and spirits stores with a new 7,000-sq. ft. location opened adjacent to the grocer’s Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. store last week. 

🍻 Grocers are allowed to sell wine and beer in Florida, but liquor must be sold in separate outlets. The Fresh Market is joining other chains like Publix and Southeastern Grocers that have launched connected outlets in states where liquor must be sold separately.

🍷 The new store will feature premium spirits, wines and craft beer, plus assorted mixers, snacks, glassware and wine by the glass.

📍 North Carolina-based The Fresh Market operates more than 165 grocery stores in 22 states, and CEO Brian Johnson said the new liquor operation is “an incredible opportunity to expand on our popular beverage program.”

Online grocery sales jumped up 31% in February to $10.3 billion, according to Brick Meets Click’s latest Grocery Shopper Survey. Over 80 million households made at least one “eGrocery” order last month.

• All three metrics – direct-to-consumer home delivery, store-to-home delivery and in-store pickup options – were up year-over-year 
• Delivery is the strongest segment, up 45% with $4.5 billion in sales, with users over the age of 60 and 18-to-29 year olds both embracing the service in higher numbers.
• In-store pickup was up 19% to $4.1 billion, while ship-to-home remains the smallest segment, up 29% to $1.8 billion.
• What’s behind the growth? “Regional grocers are converting first-time shoppers into more loyal customers as evidenced by the rising repeat intent rates, but so is Walmart” said Mark Fairhurst, Chief Growth Marketing Officer at Mercatus, which sponsored the report.

Dr. Pat Heist, the co-founder of groundbreaking whiskey brand Wilderness Trail, offers a deep reflection on his entrepreneurial journey, from its debut 2018 to Campari’s $600 million acquisition of the company four years later. 

Listen to the episode now. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.