• 🤒 We’re Feeling Unwell
• 🐄 USDA Requires Milk Testing for Bird Flu
• 📈 Brown-Forman Beats Expectations
• 💩 Liquid Death Now Depends on Diapers
• 🍋 Wilderton Rebrands With Aperitivo Focus
• ☕ Nespresso, Blue Bottle Partner On Whole Bean Blend

With new beverages constantly hitting the shelves, the competition is fierce! No matter what kind of beverage product, Tetra Pak can help you succeed. With best-in-class drink packaging, we can advise you with solutions that will compel consumers to pick your product first. Learn more

A potential exit for Spindrift may have stolen the headlines yesterday, but another category stalwart, LaCroix maker National Beverage Corp., had some news of its own.

The Florida-based company cited “changes in consumer habits” and reduced purchasing power as the root cause behind a 2.9% decline in net sales ($291 million) during the second quarter; net earnings were $45.6 million. Volume decreased 4.6% across both the Power+ Brands division (which includes La Croix and its sublines) and CSDs (Shasta, Faygo), against an average price increase of 2.2%

Supply chain disruptions and store closures related to multiple “record-setting storms” in the Southeast hurt the bottom line, though the company noted “the effects on our operations, however, pale in comparison to the devastation and loss of loved ones experienced by the residents trying to rebuild their lives.”

That’s a downturn from the first quarter, during which saw the company pay shareholders a special dividend of just over $304 million on the back of a 1.6% increase in sales. After that, though, operating income remains solid at $127 million in Q2, a $10 million rise.

For the first six months of its fiscal year, National Beverage is reporting around a 0.6% drop in sales ($620 million) from a 1.4% price hike and a 1.8% volume decrease across both Power+ Brands and CSDs.

Go Deeper: Check out recent Nielsen data for a full sense of how the segment is performing.

Hot off signing a $125 million, three-year contract with SiriusXM this summer, podcaster Alex Cooper – creator and host of the massively popular Call Her Daddy – is now looking to help consumers feel more Unwell with her new beverage brand, Unwell Hydration.

• The drink, named for Cooper’s media company The Unwell Network, was developed in collaboration with Nestlé and launches exclusively at Target next month.
• Unwell Hydration looks to toe the line between sports and energy drinks with a three flavor line of 16.9 oz. drinks made with 700 mg of electrolytes, B vitamins and are “gently caffeinated” with green coffee extract. It comes in Strawberry, Mango Citrus and Orange Hibiscus and will retail for $2.49 per bottle.
• Cooper dropped the surprise news during the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, stating she wanted to create a beverage that would speak to women. The launch comes as the energy category continues to broaden its appeal to female consumers, from Katy Hearn’s Alani Nu to number three category player Celsius.

Want to know more? Read the full story on BevNET.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new federal order today requiring the testing of the nation’s milk supply for the bird flu virus (H5N1). The news comes roughly one year after the virus began spreading amongst dairy cattle. 

👀 The new federal order requires that raw (unpasteurized) milk samples nationwide be collected and shared with the USDA for testing, facilitating comprehensive H5N1 surveillance of the nation’s milk supply. 

🗣️ What they said: “This testing strategy is a critical part of our ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of individuals and communities nationwide. Our primary responsibility at HHS is to protect public health and the safety of the food supply, and we continue to work closely with USDA and all stakeholders on continued testing for H5N1 in retail milk and dairy samples from across the country to ensure the safety of the commercial pasteurized milk supply.” -  Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health & Human Services 

With new beverages constantly hitting the shelves, the competition is fierce! No matter what kind of beverage product, Tetra Pak can help you succeed. With best-in-class processing equipment and drink packaging, we can advise you with solutions that will compel consumers to pick your product first. Learn more

Brown-Forman was able to buck expectations in its latest quarterly earnings thanks to its higher-end whiskies, but CEO Lawson Whiting cautioned the company is facing “so many potential scenarios and unknowns” due to looming, potential tariffs. 

🥃 The whiskey giant reported a sales dip of 1% (+3% organic) to $1.11 billion, topping analysts’ expectation of $1.07 billion in Q2 FY 2025. For the first half of the fiscal year, reported net sales decreased 5% and gross profit declined 8%, mainly due to the sale of its Sonoma-Cutrer and Finlandia brands. Another major bev-alc company followed suit  offloading its vodka brand this week. 

🛟 The company’s whiskey portfolio was buoyed by Woodford Reserve and Old Forester but its flagship brand, Jack Daniel’s, declined 1%. With Jack & Coke, the company is aiming to bring younger drinkers into the core whiskey’s fold and said it’s new innovation, Jack & Coke Cherry “added incremental shoppers to the Jack & Coke RTD family.” Expect the RTDs first variety pack in March.

🚢 Meanwhile, Whiting said the leading exporter of U.S. spirits has learned from prior experience and has been preparing for multiple potential scenarios. “No matter what we do, it's still going to be a very painful situation and a painful outcome,” he said.

Read the full story to understand the headwinds weighing on the spirits space.

Take it from us, heavy metal bars are not known for their clean and pleasant bathroom experiences. If you’re looking to avoid lines and toilets that could cause sepsis by just breathing near them, then Liquid Death has you covered – literally – with their new Depends collab, the Pit Diaper.

• Yeah, that’s right. The canned water and tea company is making an adult diaper. It’s probably not even the weirdest thing they’ve ever done.
• The campaign features a trademark parody infomercial encouraging consumers to bang their heads and mosh in peace knowing they can relieve themselves in their odor-protected, pleather-camouflaged adult diapers.
• The diapers, which were priced at $75 and came with a pack of 52 Depend Guards, are already sold out on the brand’s website. We pray they’re only being bought as a collector’s item, but hey… could be useful in a pinch some day.

Adult Non-Alc (ANA) spirit brand Wilderton is riding the spritz wave, or at least getting ready for the zero-proof iteration to take off. 

💡 Hood River-based Wilderton launched in December 2020 with three signature expressions that are distilled using globally-sourced wild plants. But after a few years its best seller, a Campari alternative, became a lightbulb for the founders as they tackled a non-alc cocktail culture still in its infancy. 

🪪 Now the company is rebranding as Wilderton Aperitivo Co. and centering their new identity on two aperitif alternatives, their bestseller, Bittersweet Aperitivo and Citrus Aperitivo, which launched yesterday. 

🛒 The focus on the bitter liquors has already paid off by granting access to natural grocers, where other non-alc spirits may not be able to enter due to preservatives in their products: “Our velocity is proving that the right retail partner who's targeting the right kind of consumer for us is actually a better, broader opportunity than spending a ton of time and resources getting into every bar and every independent store in a smaller geographic area,” said co-founder Brad Whiting.

Read the full story for all of the details.

Known for its flagship pod-based machines, Nespresso never had much motivation to produce a whole bean coffee blend… until today. Aptly named Blend No. 1 Whole Bean, the beans mark a first for Nestlé’s signature coffee brand.

💧 Blend No. 1 Whole Bean will be available in 10 oz. bags, is recommended for use in a pour-over brewing system and will be produced along with the multinational coffee company’s premium label Blue Bottle.

👌 The product will only be available to U.S. consumers for a limited time and the launch also reintroduces the Nespresso x Blue Bottle Blend No. 1 capsule collab for the Vertuo machines.

☝️This is not the first-first for Nespresso recently. The coffee brand launched a ready-to-drink product, Master Origins Colombia sweetened with its Bloom honey product, in September.