• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Sips
• 🍸 Diageo To Sell Cîroc?
• 🤝 People Moves From Around The Industry
• 🪧 Bigfoot Beverage Strike Continues
• 🥃 Heritage Brings In Ex-Starbucks COO
• 💧 Calling All Water Sommeliers
• 🫧 Were We All Wrong About Olipop & Poppi?

Roughly a year after being acquired by SOURCE Global, aluminum packaged spring water brand Proud Source is hoping a new distribution pact with New York powerhouse Dora’s Naturals will get its increasingly national business flowing at the start of 2025.

This past year has been about “righting the ship” and priming the company for future growth, explained chief sales and marketing officer Michael Boyd earlier this month. That started shortly after Boyd arrived at the Idaho-based company last summer, having picked up significant category experience during a four-plus year stint at Fiji Water that concluded in 2021. Several other Fiji vets have joined him since, including former sales manager Scott Church, who joined Proud Source as VP of retail last October. 

Boyd’s time running marketing at longtime Dora’s partner GT’s Kombucha also comes in handy, as the distributor’s owner Cyrus Schwartz – who now has more warehouse space to fill – noted at BevNET Live this month.

Behind its new team, Proud Source has been adding manufacturing capacity in the form of two additional bottling plants, which have in turn fueled expanded distribution beyond its Pepsi network-serviced accounts on the West Coast. Proud Source has picked up DSDs like Jack Hillard in Texas and CoreMark and Pure Beverages in the Midwest, but all roads now lead to New York City, a “critical market” where the brand has aligned with Dora’s Naturals.

Proud Source’s experience over the past 12 months is influencing strategy for 2025; Boyd specifically praised the brand’s 16 oz. “Made in America” cans as “the next big evolution” within the business. That value-minded packaging – a particularly popular format for water since first championed by Liquid Death – has been a “huge success” that helped open the doors at large format stores like Kroger (where 8-packs have gained a foothold in center store) and convenience outlets like Qwik Trip. The 16 oz. tall boys complement its existing 12 oz. cans. 

“The biggest thing is, as we’ve expanded and looked at the way the category is growing, there’s a huge opportunity to gain new consumers and drive trial with the can packaging,” Boyd explained.

To read more about Proud Source’s innovation plans for 2025, including the much-anticipated debut of Sky Water, read the full story on BevNET.

From White Lotus-themed coffee creamers to non-alcoholic negronis, the latest edition of BevNET’s weekly new products gallery features innovations spanning all sides of the industry. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

☕ Coffee Mate has joined forces with HBO’s The White Lotus to launch two limited-edition creamers inspired by the series: Thai Iced Coffee Flavored Creamer and Pina Colada Flavored Creamer. Both varieties will be available at grocery stores nationwide beginning in January for a SRP of $4.49 per 28 oz. bottle.  

🥃 Just in time for Dry January, The Free Spirits Company has unveiled two new offerings: Negroni and Espresso Old Fashioned, both carrying an SRP of $15.99 per 4-pack. The brand doesn’t make non-alcoholic vodka, so it used its non-alcoholic bourbon to craft what it claims to be the only NA Espresso Old Fashioned. 

💧 Ocean Spray is seeking to give consumers a new way to enjoy juice by introducing its new powdered drink mixes, crafted in collaboration with Dyla Brands. The mixes are available in Cran x Grape, White Cran x Peach, and White Cran x Strawberry flavors. 

Keep an eye out for the full new products gallery on BevNET later today.

Two things not doing well right now: Diageo’s vodka portfolio and Sean “Diddy” Combs. 

🔍 Diageo is reportedly exploring a sale of Cîroc Vodka, the brand once transformed by the support of disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is now in prison facing federal charges of sex trafficking, among other crimes. 

📉 Talks of an offload make sense as the vodka brand’s sales dropped 28% in North America last FY, and the 15-year business relationship between the two parties came to a bitter end in January after Combs filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination.

📝 Combs is often credited with being among the first to illustrate the power of celebrity backing to boost spirit sales – but his downfall is a good example of why agreements between celebrities and liquor companies should have morality clauses for both sides.

Read the full story on BevNET.

💧 Mayawell co-founder and CEO Oliver Shuttlesworth has taken on the CEO role at Austin-based water filter company Vida Water. Shuttlesworth has led prebiotic soda brand Mayawell since 2018, but stepped away from day-to-day operations in October while continuing to support the team in an advisory role, according to a LinkedIn post.

💡 NielsenIQ named Dan Bonert its new head of retail media in North America. Bonert comes to the data business after working in ad sales at Amazon and The Trade Desk’s general manager.

🟥 The Coca‑Cola Company has appointed Paula Costa as its new Emerging Category president where she will oversee the development of the company’s global RTD bev-alc portfolio. Costa enters the role after leading partnerships with spirits brands as part of Switzerland-based bottler Coca-Cola HBC.

The Teamsters Local 324 union is continuing its strike of Oregon-based Bigfoot Beverage despite the fact that their health care benefits are just weeks away from expiring. 

👥 The Teamsters began the strike in September alleging unfair labor practices, including an attempt by the PepsiCo-aligned distributor to gut worker pensions. The union members have since ramped up the strike, calling on a boycott and bringing other unions in for solidarity.

❌ The union filed new Unfair Labor Practices charges against Bigfoot when the distributor tried to “falsely and unlawfully” withdraw recognition of the striking union members’ representative.

💭 “Our employer’s refusal to recognize the right of our union to exist is shameful and quite frankly embarrassing for them. Their strategy is backfiring,” said Local 324 member Brayden Pinney.

On the heels of its IPO last month, Heritage Distilling Company announced two big additions to its leadership team yesterday while it works to expand its national footprint.

Former Starbucks COO Troy Alstead has joined the spirits company’s board of directors, and spirits industry veteran Andrew Varga will be taking on the role of chief revenue officer in addition to serving as a director. 

• Alstead brings over two decades of executive leadership experience to Heritage, having served in multiple senior roles at Starbucks where he supported the chain’s global growth initiatives.
• Varga is bringing marketing experience from stints at Brown-Forman Corporation, Papa John’s International and Zimmerman Advertising. 

Beverages are all the rage in the fast food world right now (see everything from CosMc’s to Live Más and Saucy for evidence). But today we learned that the fine dining world is also pretty keen on quenching its thirst, however its beverage of choice is far from what we’d expect.

⭐ The three Michelin star restaurant at The Inn at Little Washington has introduced a water tasting menu to its repertoire as it works to "revolutionize hydration," Axios D.C. reported. 

🏔️ Selections range at the Virginia-based establishment from a home-sourced (and might we add, free) water, to the priciest, (read: $95) iceberg water that’s been hand-harvested from thousand-year-old glaciers to give notes of… “ancient packed snow and air.” Each offering is rated from sweet to salty as well as smooth to complex with both still and sparkling options available. 

🧊 Considering all customers coming through the Inn’s doors have already shelled out $380 a piece for dinner, what’s a few extra bucks to be able to mock your compatriots on their low minerality hydration palates. 

Did anyone see this coming? Last week, BevNET learned that the Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo plan to launch prebiotic, low-calorie sodas in 2025. How will their respective forays impact the fast-growing category and what does it say about potential acquisitions of leading brands Olipop and Poppi? The hosts weigh in.

Listen to the episode now.