• ✨ BevNET Live - Just 9 Days Away!
• 🍀 Lucky Energy Secures Cash From Spirits-Focused Fund
• 🏁 Celsius's New Marketing Blitz
• 🔮 ISWR: Bev-Alc To Grow By $16B
• 🔀 Monday Moves

After 25 years as an entrepreneur Joyburst founder Brad Woodgate is comfortable getting sued – it comes with the territory, he feels – which is why when he got word last month that a lawsuit was coming his way again he decided to have a bit of fun with it.

He decided to flip the script when the server handed him papers at the brand’s Ontario, Canada offices, turning the moment into a sampling opportunity and offering a Joyburst to the courier – which was gladly accepted, per a video shared on Woodgate’s social media. 

As of last week the video had been viewed “more than 400 hours,” Woodgate said – meaning it got more eyeballs than most of Joyburst’s deliberate marketing efforts.

So what is the case about? Woodgate didn’t say who is suing him and his company, but acknowledged it’s a trademark dispute over the Joyburst name. He’s not sweating it, though, and said he’s confident the brand has its papers in order and that he’ll let his legal team handle it.

“Litigation is part of the game, it just is what it is,” he said. “It’s always going to happen if you’re successful.”

The case comes as the three-year-old functional beverage brand, which makes hydration and energy drinks, has extended into new categories, with the most recent launch of its Protein Coffee line and an upcoming Super Soda, scheduled to roll out this summer with a line of gut health and immunity boosting CSDs.

The Protein Coffee, which launched this month in Costco, began as a request from a retail partner to “recreate the Starbucks Frappuccino” but without sugar, Woodgate said, while Super Soda launch places the brand in direct competition with Poppi and Olipop.

Insiders can read the full story on BevNET.

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Lucky Energy included beverage-alcohol investment firm InvestBev as part of its $14.2 million Series A1 round in March. The fund, which counts Juneshine and CANN, as well as a variety of spirits brands, invested “six figures” in the energy drink brand.

⏩ The brand is expecting to follow up its March bridge round with a $30 million to $40 million Series B this summer as it targets new distribution partners and capitalizing on the “opening in energy [drinks] right now,” Lucky energy founder Richard Laver told BevNET.

💰 The capital infusion is InvestBev’s first foray into the energy drink set, diversifying out from its primary focus in alcohol.

💬 “We are expanding our footprint…Lucky is a natural additive to what the consumer is drinking. Better-for-you, check the box. Energy drink for millennials, check the box,” InvestBev founder and managing partner Brian Rosen told BevNET.

🏪 InvestBev expects to be additive to the brand by helping it increase its partnerships in the liquor store channel, where the investment firm has a strong network.

Celsius is looking to steal some attention back to the core brand (ICYMI: its recent purchase of Alani Nu has been a hot topic) with its largest 360 marketing initiative to-date, dubbed LIVE.FIT.GO. 

👩🏼‍🚒 The multi-part narrative campaign launches today (three 15-second and one 30-second anthem ad spot) highlights everyday heroes – firefighter, nurse, marathon runner – and positions Celsius as the “energy source for anyone striving to live with purpose and energy.” 

📺 Expect to see it across connected TV and paid and organic social, out-of-home displays and experiential events.

🗂️ Celsius CEO John Fieldly noted last week that the core brand and Alani will maintain separate teams in order to maintain their unique respective voices, but the company will combine things like field marketing and media buying, with teams moving from “one activation one day and a different activation the next day.”

Go Deeper: Celsius Offers Alani Update: $50M In Synergies, Bigger Role for Protein?

IWSR has peered into its crystal ball and expects the global bev-alc market to grow by $16 billion over the next five years, and $34 billion over the next 10 years, according to new forecasts.

That estimate still reflects recent challenges with global volumes down 1% in 2024 but up by value 1%, 

⭐ Categories With Bright Futures? 

• In 2024, non-alc beer volume was up 9%, and IWSR now forecasts that it will surpass ale, becoming the second largest overall beer category by volume worldwide this year.
• RTDs continued their global growth in 2024, up 2% in volume and nearly 5% in value. While hard seltzers continue to decline, cocktails and long drinks are surging in most major markets, and hard tea experienced 31% annual volume growth in the U.S.
• Global spirits volume was down 2% in 2024, but tequila is on the up outside of its home market, growing by 2% in volume and 4% in value across all other markets in 2024.

Here’s a taste of the people and products moving around the industry to start off your week.

🥛 Horizon Organics named Patricia Stroup as COO; Stroup previously held positions at Hilmar Cheese Company and Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association in addition to an 18-year-long tenure at Nestle. She also served as the board chair of the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA).

🍒 NextFoods, Inc., parent to Cheribundi and Goodbelly, announced the appointment of Marc Seguin as the company’s new CEO. Seguin previously served as chief sales officer of Pressed Juicery. 

☀️ Organic beverage maker Sol-ti is expanding its SuperShot line to national retailers including Starbucks, Walmart and Target. The brand’s Starbucks rollout marks the first time a functional shot has been offered as the national coffee chain. Read the full release on BevNET’s Newswire here.

🥬 Drinkable greens company AG1 is readying its first-ever brick-and-mortar retail launch, nearly 15 years after the brand debuted selling direct-to-consumer. The brand will roll out single-serve stick packs in an exclusive 40-count box format to all Costco locations nationwide for an SRP of $72.99 each, an AG1 spokesperson told Nosh via email. Read the full story here.