• 🚛 Target Grows NA and Kroger Welcomes Yerbaé
• 💥 Coca-Cola, Marvel Assemble for Global Campaign
• 🫂 Swoon To Shoppers: Can I Be Your ‘Bestie’?
• 🍸 Margaritas Are Still America’s sweetheart

Nutpods, acquired by Private Equity firm MPearlRock in January, has a new CEO. Founder Madeline Haydon, who started the brand in 2013, said today she is moving on, passing the baton to new CEO Matt Witherell, the former CEO of Humm Kombucha.

🤝 "The future is bright and I'm handing everything over to Matt," Haydon said. She added that she would be transitioning out at the end of the month.

👑 Haydon told us that Witherell was her "handpicked successor" and that the two of them had gotten to know each other over the past 4 to 5 years. Both Nutpods and Humm, recently sold to SYSTM Foods, were previously backed by VMG.

📈 Under Haydon the brand grew to 36 employees – still very lean for a brand with 15,000 retail accounts and the top plant-based milk in online sales. Witherell said he was excited for the next stage of growth, with the brand having grown for the past 16 months.

Stay tuned to BevNET for the full story. 

Spring is well under way, which can only mean one thing: retail resets. Here’s the latest distribution news from around the beverage business:

🌱 Plant-based energy brand Yerbaé announced it has partnered with Terborg Distributing and Pure Beverages to expand in Indiana and Kentucky. Now, CEO Todd Gibson said the brand has an “opportunity” to expand in Kroger stores around the country.

♣️ Canned NA cocktail brand Mocktail Club has launched in 700 Target locations around the country as part of the retailer’s partnership with non-alc beverage company Sèchey.

🌝 Better-for-you soda Perfy is adding Roundy’s Supermarket stores to its footprint, including 76 Metro Market and Pick ‘n Save locations in Wisconsin and 45 Mariano’s stores in Illinois.

🏜️ Vanessa Hudgens’ prickly pear beverage brand Caliwater is now available nationwide in Sprouts stores.

🎊 Dun, a brand on non-alc canned cocktails, has launched at Pop Up Grocer’s New York flagship store, founder and creative director Corrine Reed announced on LinkedIn last week.

🛩️ Betty Booze, the RTD cocktail sister brand to actress Blake Lively’s Betty Buzz mixer line, has partnered with distributor Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, the company announced in a press release.

🎮 Energy drink brand Juvee is adding over 1,000 Target stores nationwide, according to an announcement on Instagram.

Coca-Cola today unveiled Coca-Cola x Marvel: Heroes – the beverage giant’s latest collaboration with Marvel featuring a line of hero and villain-themed cans and bottles. More than 30 Marvel characters, such as Iron Man, Deadpool and Thor, are featured in the 38-pack of designs across limited edition products, now available for purchase worldwide. 

📱 Each can will “bring its character to life” in a unique way through AR, according to the announcement. Additionally, the campaign will give fans a chance to win prizes such as Disney cruises, Marvel movie screenings, collectible influencer boxes and more. 

📺 The “heroic” collaboration will be supported by a 360-degree global campaign that will run across TV, cinema and other video sharing platforms as well as digital and out-of-home programming. 

⏪ Coca-Cola first forged a relationship with Disney over 60 years ago and the brands have continued to collaborate across projects including Coke Orbs found at Galaxy’s Edge in Disney World’s Hollywood Studios and Club Cool at EPCOT. 

Drinks always go better with friends, so it’s no surprise that Swoon co-founders (and IRL friends) Cristina Ros Blankfein and Jen Ross have chosen ‘Bestie’ as the theme for their zero-sugar beverage company’s new spring marketing campaign, accompanied by new packaging designs and updated formulations.

📺 The cross-channel national campaign will highlight “celebrity and influencer besties” like Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga and her daughter Antonia.

👀 The new look — now on printed cans rather than wrapped — simplifies and clarifies Swoon’s immediate value proposition “in a bright, approachable way” (per PR), while the updated recipe aims for “smoother” and just generally “better than ever.” How? By complementing monk fruit sweetener with a bit of stevia.

🛒 The campaign will support growth across channels, with Swoon balancing a DSD presence in high-traffic regions like NYC (Big Geyser) and Northeast (Polar) alongside distribution in Target, Kroger, Publix, Whole Foods and other large grocery chains.

America’s number one cocktail is still… number one. Updated cocktail rankings from NIQ’s CGA came in last week, with the margarita still on top followed by the martini and moscow mule. The spritz, espresso martini and Negroni also moved up on the list. 

🍷 Drinkers continue to shift towards tequila-based cocktails, with the agave spirit taking 34.1% share of cocktail base sales by value, up by 1.8% year-over-year and at the expense of vodka, which saw share fall by 1.3% points to 28.2%. Wine cocktails are on the move too. 

📊 After four years of ups and downs, trends in on-premise have begun to normalize. In recent weeks sales have been steady, with sales velocity up +3% in the week ending March 30 followed by +7% the prior week. We broke down more details on the highest value cocktail states and the outlook for eating and drinking out in the next month. 

For more details on the highest value cocktail states and outlook for next month, check out the full story on BevNET.

What role can bars and mixologists play in protecting Earth’s fragile environment? It’s a question that Torres Brandy is attempting to answer via its innovative Zero Challenge competition, which is designed to promote a new paradigm in hospitality by aligning cocktail culture with environmental responsibility.

Listen to the latest episode here.