• 🎯 Supergut’s Target-ed Sampling
• ⚾ ITO EN Goes Big League
• 💎 GURU Nears Profitability
• 🤑 Will MrBeast Buy TikTok?
• 🥊 The Fight Over Candy-Flavored Drink Claims
• ✨ Fancy Food & Numbers Behind Adult Non-Alc

At Givaudan, we empower brands to develop with consumer understanding and innovation in mind. As the energy market evolves, consumers seek bold flavors and functionality. Let’s go Beyond the Boost to target the right consumers with the flavors and benefits they crave. Learn more

Dry January is a time for adult non-alc (ANA) brands to gauge the category’s consumer demand through sales growth. “Social tonic” seller Hiyo has a different thermometer and the mercury is rising.

💰 The brand reported $19 million in new funding in an SEC Form D filed earlier this month. While the company would not comment on specifics, they did say the total amount reflects “Series A funds, prior convertibles and a recapitalization.”

🚚 Hiyo had a big year which included expanding its distribution footprint in conventional retailers like Meijer and H-E-B, while also reeling in a 5-year partnership with electronic music promoter Insomniac.

🎧 At the time of the Insomniac announcement, Hiyo’s founding team also said it had raised $2.1 million – an oversubscription of an expected $1.5 million bridge round – which included angel investors, Insomniac Holdings and Mexico-based venture fund Santatera Capital.

🔢 Category Count: ANA category sales edged closer to $1 billion in 2024, a 27.2% increase year-over-year, according to market research firm NIQ. The ready-to-drink ANA set, where Hiyo is positioned, rose 167% last year.

Read the full story on BevNET.

Supergut founder and CEO Marc Washington understands the bad rap and category-wide challenges of fiber-focused products: they have minimal taste appeal and sit in low-traffic sets. 

• That is why sampling has become an important part of the six-year-old brand’s omni-channel growth strategy. 
• After cutting its teeth with demos at small, regional chains, Supergut brought taste-testing to Target earlier this month. 
• The biggest challenge was moving from Supergut-rep-run sampling to events operated by third-party Target-contracted field marketers. 
• The emerging brand is still refining its messaging to educate consumers on prebiotic fiber and how its bars and powders can be used to complement GLP-1 drugs. 

🆕 Sampling is also new for Target, and its looking to brands to help “create experiential settings” for its shoppers, Washington said; he noted that the costs associated with Target demos are comparable to other retailers. 

BevNET Insiders can access the full story to learn more about Target and Supergut’s sampling strategy.

If you’re looking for success in Major League Baseball, follow Shohei Ohtani. The Japanese phenom helped bring the Los Angeles Dodgers to the title in 2024 in the first year of his eye-watering, decade-long $700 million contract. 

• Now Japanese tea giant ITO EN – Ohtani’s one of their global ambassadors – is expanding its reach league-wide as the new official green tea of MLB. 
• Expect to see Ohtani featured in digital and in-store marketing in both the U.S. and Japan specifically tied to ITO EN’s best-selling Oi Ocha green tea. 
• Given Ohtani’s brand connection, it’s no surprise to see the Dodgers (and home to pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto) heavily involved: Former MVP Mookie Betts attended the press conference earlier this week, while ITO EN has signed a local Club partnership agreement with the team.

🗣️ ITO EN EVP Shusuke Honjo: “With this global agreement, we will strengthen our global strategy on ‘Oi Ocha’ through promotions around the world.”

Go Deeper: See where celebrity-backed brands fall on BevNET’s 2025 Heat Map

We’re excited to announce $30M in Series B funding! This milestone drives our mission to transform trade promotion and financial operations with innovations like Transcend AI and Cash Application. Learn more about how we’re revolutionizing trade promotion management and reshaping the future of CPG. Learn more

Canadian energy drink brand GURU is still working towards profitability, and a 3.3% net revenue increase in 2024 helped that push, president and CEO Carl Goyette said in the company’s Q4 earnings this morning.

• Full year net revenue was CAD$30.2 million while gross profit was up 8.4% to CAD$16.7 million. Net losses fell 21.3% to CAD $9.4 million.
• GURU is preparing for a big transition this year, as its exclusive distribution agreement with PepsiCo, servicing the Canadian market, ends May 22. 
• Growth is largely coming from the U.S. – especially online with Amazon sales for its Zero Sugar offerings – providing a big boost to the brand’s overall performance.

🔈 Goyette said that they’ve “been preparing for a seamless transition” back to the direct model that it employed from 1999 to 2021.

YouTube personality, Feastables founder and 2024 Nosh Notables designee Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is part of an investor group making a bid to buy TikTok from Chinese parent company ByteDance. 

📲 In a video posted last week on the platform, Donaldson said, “Just got out of a meeting with a bunch of billionaires. TikTok, we mean business… We have an offer ready for you.”

💸 Other prominent investors are reportedly in the running to buy the app before a law banning it takes effect. Those include Elon Musk, Kevin O’Leary and Frank McCourt.

Go Deeper: TikTok On The Chopping Block: How To Prepare For A Ban

Mondelēz International and Ghost Beverages are fighting to dismiss a proposed class action lawsuit claiming they illegally market candy-flavored energy drinks to kids. 

😝 The companies argued this week that reasonable consumers understand that the labels on products featuring Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish and Warheads candy trademarks represent flavors and are not an indication of safety for children, according to Law360.

💬 What they said: "The fact of the matter is … food is going to have a favorable palate, and a lot of flavors that appeal to adults might also appeal to children and that's the case here.” – Matthew Orr, attorney for Ghost Beverages

The Specialty Food Association is taking a page from the Newtopia Now playbook, announcing it is changing the format and location of its annual winter show. 

📰 Nosh managing editor Monica Watrous was at the Winter Fancy Food Show last week and told senior reporters Brad Avery and Lukas Southard about how the news was received by attendees and what trends she saw in the final Las Vegas event. 

🍷 Later, the CPG Week team unpacks some numbers behind the alcohol moderation movement and why adult non-alc continues to grow even outside of “dry” months like January or October.

Click here to listen to this week’s episode.

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