While non-alcoholic beverage dollar sales remain resilient, volume declines worsened over the two-week period ending December 30, 2023, according to an analysis of NielsenIQ data by Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

💵 Dollar sales in the two-week period rose 3.4%, compared to +3.5% in the four-weeks. However, volume sales declined -1.8%, with +5.2% average pricing growth making up for the slide.

⚡ Energy drinks continue to be one of the strongest performing categories, with dollar sales up by 8.4% and volume sales up a robust 9.2%. Strong growth for brands like Celsius (+103.2%), Nutrabolt/C4 (+64.5%), Alani Nu (+50.6%) and Ghost (+59.3%) have continued to elevate the category.

🙁 Two areas where dollar sales declined: bottled water (-1.5%) and ready-to-drink coffee (-4.2%). Both categories fell in the period as their respective leading brands BlueTriton (-1.7%) and Starbucks (-3.3%) posted negative growth.

👟 Sports drink sales accelerated, up 4.6% as +10.8% pricing offset a -5.6% volume dip. Gatorade (+2.1%) improved from a -0.4% decline in the four-week period while brands like PRIME (+106.8%) and Electrolit (+33.9%) lifted the category, even as Coke’s portfolio (BodyArmor and Powerade) fell -6%.

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Spirits-based RTDs growth remained strong over the Chritsmas period, as total BevAlc sales growth decelerated slightly with volume performance slightly more negative according to an analysis of NielsenIQ data by Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

📉 Spirit-based RTDs, which slightly decelerated with sales up 26.2% in the two-week period, versus 28.5% for the four-weeks and 32.6% for the 12-weeks.

😎 High Noon, which was recently named as the bestselling spirits-based RTD by volume by Impact Database, continued with strong but decelerated growth, up 37.4% for two-weeks, with volumes up 34.1% and pricing up 2.4%. Share expanded (27%) year-over-year and sequentially.

🍷 Meanwhile, sales growth for wine-based RTDs like BuzzBallz and BeatBox were 32% for the two-week period, compared to 33.4% in the four-weeks and 33.7% in the 12-weeks.

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This morning ready-to-drink sea moss brand Moss announced that Black Panther and Creed actor Michael B. Jordan is a co-founder of the beverage startup, launched in partnership with health and wellness cafe chain Dr Smood.

🤝 The brand came together as a partnership between the cafe company and Jordan’s Outlier Society Ventures; though Dr Smood sells a range of foods at its cafes, as well as CPG products, Moss is the first standalone, new brand it has backed. 

🍸 According to VP of Sales Ross Shepherd, Jordan mixed up the first iterations of Moss at Las’ Lap, a rum bar he co-owns with friends in Manhattan.

🚚 The brand expects to grow from its current 50 doors count to nearly 1,000 stores nationwide by the end of the year after recently onboarding with KeHE for a national launch at Sprouts.

Check out the full story on BevNET for the scoop on sea moss and where Dr Smood comes into play.

Pepsi’s sparkling water brand Bubly has crafted its own rendition of famed London restaurant Bob Bob Ricard’s viral “press for champagne” button, dubbed “press for bubly,” to help Dry January participants confidently forge past Quitter’s Day (Jan. 12). 

🛎️ Now through the end of the month, consumers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago can enter to win their very own “press for bubly button,” equipped with GPS and LTE technology, that will prompt the delivery of a bubly 8-pack straight to their doorstep. Winners will receive free bubly for an entire year.

🥳 For consumers outside of the participating markets, bubly is giving away free 8-packs to the first 1,000 people who sign up on the “press for bubly” microsite. 

💭 ”[The campaign] goes to show that our design team is just itching to find ways that we can inject play into the areas you may not expect it,” said Patrick Gable, bubly’s senior brand marketing manager of communications. “The playful moment ends up being more inspiring and more capturing.”

The checkered flag is waving for Rowdy Energy, though much earlier than it wanted or expected. The energy drink brand co-founded by NASCAR star Kyle “Rowdy” Busch (his nickname itself a nod to racing cult classic Days of Thunder) and former Suja co-founder Jeff Church (who served as CEO) in 2020 is closing up shop at the end of the month, per a post to Church’s Linkedin account yesterday. 

🏎️ Entering the market with a better-for-you energy drink with natural caffeine in 2020, Rowdy found traction in convenience stores and with some investors: in May 2021, it raised $13 million from a group that included CircleUp, the Kraft Group and Michael Rubin, executive chairman of Fanatics.

💸 Church cited hurdles to growth capital as one of the reasons behind Rowdy’s closure, writing “Despite our best efforts, challenges in securing funding and difficulties in achieving the necessary turnover at the shelf have forced us to make this decision.”

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