• 💧 Nestlé Bottled Water Moves To Solo Biz
• ⏩ A Drink With… 21Seeds' Kat Hantas
• 🏋️ BellRing's Big Year-End Earnings Gains
• ♻️ Golden Grail Bevs Embraces Sustainability
• 💻 Tree Top Jumps Into DTC
• 🎧 WSJ: The Fees Inflating Your Grocery Bill
• 🔑 The Keys To Building An Iconic Brand? A Bit Of ‘Luck’ & And A Long-Term Vision.

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If you’re looking for Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar's Santo Tequila, you might be out of luck thanks to an Oceans 13-level heist that disappeared two truckloads of tequila last week. If only it were George Clooney’s Casamigos, then this would be one meta story.

Sometime between Nov. 9 and Nov. 13, two trucks carrying Santo Tequila’s year-end shipment – a total of 4,040 cases, or 24,240 bottles – were hijacked in Laredo, Texas, shortly after crossing the international border. So how did this extra smooth tequila heist happen? 

All evidence thus far indicates that Santo Tequila’s shipping broker accepted a bid by a trucking company set up to steal loads. The "sophisticated criminal enterprise” picked up both trucks and used GPS emulators to spoof tracking software that monitored the trucks as they made their way from Mexico to their East and West coast distributors, according to Dan Butkus, president and CEO of Santo Spirits. 

Last December, 19,000 bottles of Hacienda Chactun Tequila were stolen and Butkus said he has heard anecdotally that other, more well-known tequilas have also been targeted, but the thefts were not publicized.

Data analytics from Verisk CargoNet, which is investigating the incident, show that incidents of alcoholic beverage theft are down slightly from 2023, but whereas hard seltzer comprised much of stolen product in the past, this year it’s been almost exclusively hard liquor. (Guess that tracks with market trends?) In California, food and beverage theft has increased by 325% in 2023 compared to 2022 and continues to be one of the highest-impacted commodities. 

In an appropriately Hollywood-esque scene, the LAPD spotted one truck being offloaded on the street in a known criminal cargo area in Los Angeles, while the other is still unaccounted for. “It’s unfortunate, but there are unscrupulous small retailers who would market stolen goods,” said Butkus. “In addition, there are individuals who would be more than willing to buy a case of product off the street for a bargain price.”

The company is offering a $10,000 reward for information that helps bring the hijackers to justice. Yet that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $1 million in total retail value loss during the spirit industry’s busiest season. In addition to regular expressions, the robbers made off with the entire stock of Extra Añejo Single Barrel, which took 39 months to produce. The company is now working with its distillery partner in Mexico to replenish what it can, and working “very closely” with its freight company to enact additional security measures.

BevNET Insiders can access the full story for insight on how to avoid transporter theft.

Nestlé is creating a new business to house its bottled water and premium beverage brands, as the Swiss conglomerate seeks to recalibrate its portfolio in the wake of anemic growth. 

🇫🇷 The new global standalone business – which includes brands like Perrier, Acqua Panna and San Pellegrino, among others – will be based in Paris and administered by Muriel Lienau, head of Nestlé Waters Europe. The change takes effect January 1.  

💸 Could this bring into question the future of Nestlé’s stake in the water business? Under the new leadership of CEO Laurent Freixe, the Swiss company has promised to back its underperforming brands with increased marketing and ad spending; investment is pegged at 9% of sales by the end of next year. 

💬 Yet in a statement announcing the move, Nestlé indicated that “new management will evaluate the strategy for this business,” noting “this will include exploring partnership opportunities to enable Nestlé's iconic brands and growth platforms to achieve their full potential.”

Read the full story on BevNET.

“Moms don't discover brands on-premise,” said Kat Hantas, co-founder of flavored tequila 21Seeds. 

🍷 Created by three women in 2019, flavored tequila 21Seeds found a niche by catering to an underserved demographic – moms. They also targeted the at-home drinking occasion previously occupied by wine, and they did it fortuitously right before the COVID-19 lockdowns.

🗺️ Three years later, tequila giant Diageo acquired 21Seeds. We recently caught up with Hantas to learn what led to such a quick exit, including the brand’s successful strategy in finding a completely different route-to-market: “We're not trying to build the brand bar-by-bar, we're trying to go where she shops.”

🫸 Hantas also shared how she pushed back on industry norms, why the company culture enabled her team to move fast, and what entrepreneurs should look out for when beginning the acquisition process.

Read the full interview on BevNET.

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Bellring Brands, the parent company of Premier Protein and Dymatize, ended its fiscal year on a high note as its full FY2024 net sales came in at the high end of its expectations, per an earnings report this morning. Premier reached “all-time highs” for household penetration and total distribution points.

• Fiscal year net sales were up 19.8% to $1.9 billion with an operating profit of $387.7 million. 
• Q4 net sales were up 17.6% to $555.8 million with an operating profit of $112.1 million.
• Strong volume gains helped drive the overall growth with Premier Protein’s overall volumes jumping 19.5% in Q4 and its RTD shake net sales improving by 20.7%. 
• The rosy results follow last year’s Q4 earnings, which were negatively impacted by the discontinuation of BellRing’s PowerBar brand in North America. 

🌬️ Heading into the new fiscal year, president and CEO Darcy H. Davenport said “momentum remains high” as the “convenient nutrition category continues to provide strong tailwinds, with ready-to-drink shakes and powders in the early stages of growth.”

Stay tuned for the full earnings rundown later today.

Scott Lomu, CEO of publicly traded brand portfolio company Golden Grail Beverages, is touting a “new vision” for the business, emphasizing sustainability and health and wellness in order to reach new consumers and grow market share.

• Golden Grail’s brands include energy drinks Spider and Sway, aluminum-packaged waters KOZ and Cause, enhanced water Trevi Essence, sparkling water Sketch Can, and sparkling kids drink Tickle Water.
• Lomu – who previously co-founded Element United, a blockchain technology company focused on the precious metals industry – said Golden Grail has focused on adding more brands to its portfolio, as well as expanding distribution, while also dropping plastic packaging across its product lines.
• Golden Grail trimmed its common stock shares from 5 billion to 500 million shares this summer.

Farmer-owned cooperative Tree Top launched its first online retail store this week aiming to capitalize on consumers’ growing demand for ecommerce grocery shopping. Orders will be shipped only in the lower 48 states. 

🍎 As part of the launch, Tree Top will host a social media “15 Days of Giveaways” campaign between November 19 and December 3 with daily prizes. The apple sauce and juice maker will also be offering free shipping on orders $25 or more through December 2. 

🔼 Online grocery sales are rising, up 28% year-over-year to $10.5 billion in October, according to the latest Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey. 

The Wall Street Journal has been digging into a challenge you likely know about all too well: chargeback and deduction fees from distributors. In addition to a feature story earlier this month, today The Journal podcast sat down with Kyle Koehler, the founder of granola brand Wildway, to understand how those fees are contributing to higher prices at checkout.

Go Deeper: Revamped UNFI Supplier Pact Stirs Industry Debate.

Luke Boase, the founder of Lucky Saint, a fast-growing brand of non-alcoholic beer from the U.K.,  talks about why the brand’s potential for an iconic future has always been top of mind. He also explains how the company incorporates consumer insights and data into its retail pitches and how he thinks about competing with beer companies owned by or aligned with large strategics. 

Listen to the episode now.