• ⏩ Six Brands Advance in NBS 29
• 💃 Hough Dances With Icelandic Glacial
• ❌ SBA Tightens Underwriting, Citizenship Reqs
• 🥤 USDA Restricts More Soda Sales Via SNAP
• 🌡️ Confusing Celsius for Coke?
• 🎙️ Now Streaming: CPG Week

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The opening day was jam-packed with topics like tackling leadership amid transformation and what CPG investors are looking for. 

The program brought entrepreneurs, category builders and seasoned stakeholders together to discuss successful strategies in the beverage business – from all angles. Here’s just a taste of what went down…

Leading By Listening. With over two decades in the CPG food and beverage business, Ben Mand has been in a wide range of roles. In March 2024, he left the CEO role at coconut water brand Harmless Harvest to lead a new growth phase yerba mate maker Guayaki, culminating in its recent rebrand to Yerba Madre.

There isn’t one approach to being a CEO, he said; leadership needs to meet the needs and goals of the business.

• “You can have all the best strategy and the best plans in the world, but if you don't have a team that is engaged or bought into what you're trying to do, you will not accomplish anything.”

A Collective Approach To Investing. Editor-in-chief Jeff Klineman spoke with Alyssa Arnold, partner at The Angel Group; Kyle Fitzpatrick, founder of Paperboy Ventures; and Josh Wand, Managing Partner of The Family Fund, about how their organizations operate in slightly different ways to help entrepreneurs and founders raise new capital.

Both The Angel Group and The Family Fund emphasized how having a network of experienced operators is just as much of a resource as a checkbook. “These founders and CEOs who have built and sold to strategics can be great guiding lights and sherpas for the next generation of founders,” Wand said.

Insiders can access the full Day One recap on BevNET.

Don’t miss a minute of Day Two! Tune into the livestream here.

🥳 Six beverage startups emerged from a field of 12 contestants to secure a spot in today’s final round of New Beverage Showdown 29, presented by Coca-Cola’s North America Revenue Streams unit.

👀 The group competing in the round includes Jubilee’s flavored milk, Kif kefir soda, Lucky Ox Asian sparkling beverages, OOSO sparkling tea, Cómo No caffeinated sparkling water and HY.Q modern sports drink.

🏆 The winner will be announced at 12:45 p.m. ET at the closing of BevNET’s annual summer conference. 

💰 In addition to hard-earned bragging rights, the champion will walk away with a $10,000 awareness-building advertising package. 

Check out the full recap of the semifinal round on BevNET.

Premium bottled water maker Icelandic Glacial is officially in the celebrity game, partnering with “Dancing With the Stars” performer Julianne Hough in its first-ever deal with a celebrity.

• This one is a rarity these days – the partnership is not an equity deal. Hough is signing on solely as a spokesperson (at least to start), but CEO Reza Mirza said she’s nevertheless been a longtime fan of the brand.
• Mirza has been diligent in focusing on establishing a strong national distribution footprint before activating on marketing. With the brand now in 60,000 stores nationwide, Icelandic Glacial is ready to open the floodgates on awareness campaigns.
• “You want to be at critical mass in order to make an impact,” Mirza said.

Insiders can read the full story on BevNET.

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The Small Business Administration (SBA) under the second Trump term does not seem to be signaling support for its core constituents: Small businesses. 

💳 Notwithstanding the toll of Trump’s tariff policy or the potential long-term agricultural supply chain crises and manufacturing labor shortages due to immigration policies, the administration has now made access to credit even more difficult for small businesses.

💸 As of this month, a slew of changes went into effect at the SBA, primarily affecting its most popular 7(a) loan program, which will make it even more difficult for small business owners to secure financial support. 

📝 Recent changes include tighter ownership and citizenship requirements, stricter underwriting standards, fee changes and more.

Insiders can access the full breakdown to understand what has changed for existing and future borrowers. 

The USDA has approved three more states’ waivers to amend their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) and restrict products that “fuel the chronic disease epidemic,” according to HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

📝 The approved waivers for Arkansas, Idaho and Utah are similar to those the USDA pushed through back in May for Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska.

🍬 All six waivers will restrict sugary drinks like soda and energy drinks from permitted SNAP purchases; four states went further by restricting candy from SNAP.

🪖 Food and beverage strategics are taking fire on multiple fronts as they fight a local measure taxing sugary drinks in California and calls to remove synthetic food dyes and ultra-processed foods.

Insiders can access the full story for the complete update.

Celsius does not contain cocaine (at least, we’re pretty sure), but could the energy drink make a person test positive for it on a drug test? That also seems rather unlikely, but it didn’t stop rumors from flying around Major League Baseball this week that consuming the brand can result in a false positive.

❌ MLB players were warning one another not to drink Celsius because of its potential to be flagged as cocaine on drug testing, per a report from Detroit Tigers Prospect writer Emily Waldon on Twitter this week.

🤔 Celsius is not NSF Certified for Sport, unlike competitors like C4 and Red Bull. But at least one toxicologist told Front Office Sports that there doesn’t appear to be any ingredients in Celsius that would disrupt a drug test.

⚾ The company called the rumor a “spurious second-hand claim.” Even if it’s not certified, Celsius has been upping its marketing around MLB, and last year the brand partnered with superstar slugger Juan Soto.

The CPG Week podcast team explores an antitrust lawsuit against Peter Rahal's protein bar brand David and speculates on the future of plant-based cheese.

🚭 The hosts look toward regulatory headwinds in hemp drinks and why there are signs of optimism despite retail setbacks. 

🍬 Is better-for-you candy having a moment? The $30 million round raised by Joyride proves there is a lot of opportunity in sour sweets.

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

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