• 🤑 Something & Nothing's Cash
• ⭐ Reviews? We Got 'Em
• 🧑🏻‍⚖️ Compass Coffee Conflict
• 📲 MAGA Battles Over Soda Tweet
• 🏭 Co-Packing Heads To PE
• 🛒 Kroger Fires Back At Albertsons 
• 🆕 What Else Is New?

Innovation around low-sugar, plant-based liquid is seeping into an OG better-for-you drink category, and no, we aren’t talking about “Modern Soda” or energy drinks. Today, senior reporter Lukas Southard has all eyes on the smoothies and juices sector.

Califia Farms is taking a sweet, indulgent approach with the launch of a low-sugar smoothie-like line called Creamy Refreshers (one of which looks like an attempt to bottle up Starbucks’ iconic Pink Drink in Califia’s large-format, trademark jugs). The portfolio extension includes four SKUs – Strawberry Creme, Key Lime Colada, Piña Colada and Orange Creme – that have “nearly 60% less sugar than leading fruit juice beverages,” according to a press release.

Califia’s play is similar to that of Vita Coco which launched its Treats line in April last year. Vita Coca has doubled down on the sweet treat adding a second variety, Orange and Cream, earlier this month. 

Though significantly more saccharine than Califia (Vita Coco’s touts 29 grams added sugar per 8 oz. Treats carton), the pairing of a recognizable, plant-based beverage brand in a new indulgent, smoothie-adjacent format appears to be what brands are betting on here. 

Looking towards an old smoothie favorite, Mexican beverage producer Grupo Jumex has also recently revived Odwalla. Does this mean there’s a growing demand for blended fruit drinks? After taking a step back, it becomes a little less clear where these brands are seeing opportunity.

Judging by recent sales data, consumers don’t seem keen on snagging a smoothie from the cold case. Refrigerated juice and drink smoothie dollar sales were down 9% to $767.6 million in the latest 52-week period ending February 23, according to Circana MULO+ tracking. This could be the opportunity Odwalla, Califia and Vita Coco are trying to capitalize on by bringing plant-based innovation to sweeten up the category.

However, adjacent categories like the blended fruit juice and refrigerated vegetable juice/cocktail sets were both up 2% and 8.7%, respectively. These segments are led by similar brands including Suja, Natalie’s and Naked. Could we see those companies extend their brand equity into the smoothie set? One company already has. 

Newly-established Generous Brands (the beverage-focused arm of Butterfly Equity) has recently gone all-in on smoothies and juices in grocery retailers through both its Bolthouse Farms and Evolution Fresh brands, as well as via its Sambazon manufacturing partnership. Flexing that manufacturing might, Generous is also launching a “turn-key” white-label juice portfolio that could be a more efficient option to expensive in-store juice bars.

Go Deeper: Juice Brands Face Down Growing Challenges

There’s a whole lot of something coming into Something & Nothing’s bank account. The U.K.-based premium soda maker has closed an equity funding round led by Source Ventures, the investment wing of mineral waters producer Spadel.

💰 The round totalled £2 million (about $2.5 million) per Something & Nothing board member and investor Bart Jan Manten on LinkedIn.

🤝 Venrex, Anotherway, Adam Levene and Drinks Sherpa founder Michael Vachon participated in the round; Vachon will also join Something & Nothing as chairman of the board.

🛒 The funding comes as the brand makes a bigger push for the U.S. market, launching into 260 Whole Foods Market stores and preparing to mount an out-of-home advertising campaign.

This week at BevNET we rounded up Call Her Daddy-backed Unwell Hydration, dairy-free cold brew latte liquid from BPM, caffeinated sparkling waters called Cómo No and a low-cal CSD from Rockaway Soda.

Then, we chronicled our thoughts with each swig, highlighting aspects of the brand, liquid and product positioning that stood out and things the company could consider for next time. 

🆓 Check out this week’s review roundup on BevNET.

Compass Coffee is doubling down on its assertion that it did not engage in “mafioso-style” tactics, as the company pushes back against a lawsuit filed by ousted co-founder Harrison Suarez filed in January.

⏪ Rewind: Suarez exited Compass in 2021 amid a dispute with cofounder and CEO Michael Haft. He alleged that Haft and his father Robert Haft forced him out of the business and defrauded the government by mishandling $10.5 million in Covid relief funds to prepay debt and buy Bitcoin. 

❌ Compass is denying all allegations, calling it a business dispute over Suarez’s post-termination payout.

🗣️ “Plaintiff's story is not one of mafiosos managing a criminal enterprise, but a pained postmortem of a business divorce by an estranged co-founder," the company’s counsel claimed in a court memo.

There’s a scandal in the MAGA Twitterverse, where several influential right-wing posters have been accused of shilling for the CSD business. 

• A social media campaign company called Influencable apparently shared posts with several conservative influencers (Kevin Posobiec, the brother of right-wing stuntcaster Jack Posobiec, video gamer Ian Miles Cheong, and Floridaman Eric Daugherty, among them) to push back on a popular conservative sentiment aiming to prevent food stamp recipients from using their subsidies to purchase items like CSDs or other processed foods. 
• The tweets would seem to run counter to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) push under current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – but they did point out correctly that President Trump continues to guzzle Diet Coke. 

MSI Express now rests in PE hands. The food and beverage contract manufacturer was acquired by middle-market PE firm Nonantum Capital Partners as it works to scale its business alongside its customers. 

• Nonantum has previously invested in CPG brands such as Hawaiian Tropic and take-and-bake pizza brand Papa Murphy’s. 
• Indiana-based, founder-led MSI operates 15 factories “strategically located” across six states, offering solutions such as blending, packaging, and both dry and liquid filling.

In other production-related news: Bayou City Hemp broke ground on a new facility in Houston, Texas and hired two new key executives Jeremy McKnight (formerly of Republic National Distributing) as SVP of commercial & business development and Joanna Desjardins (formerly of Cenovus and Deloitte) as acting COO.

Kroger shot back at Albertsons this week accusing the grocery giant of colluding with C&S Wholesale. In the words of senior reporter Lukas Southard, “this is turning into a who has a bigger legal team?!”

• In case you already forgot, C&S was the buyer Kroger and Albertsons lined up for their store divestments so that they could make the merger right in the minds of regulators. 
• Kroger claims Albertsons’ new CEO Susan Morris secretly communicated with C&S’s CEO and others to undermine its regulatory approvals strategy and caused regulators to believe that C&S was not an adequate buyer. 
• Kroger claims these communications were cited by the Washington court that ultimately blocked the deal, adding that within hours of that news, Albertsons terminated the merger and filed a 140-page complaint against Kroger. 
• Last week, C&S sued Kroger, looking to lock in its $125 million termination fee.  
• Kroger believes Albertsons’ and C&S’s misconduct makes their termination fee requests a moot point. 

Catch Up: C&S Sues Kroger

It’s Hump Day! Here’s a taste of the new drops and activations from the first half of the week.

🔥 Good news for nonagenarians! Fireball Whisky is offering a chance to win a lifetime supply of its spiced spirits to consumers 90 years old and up. We see what you did there, Fireball, but be careful – you don’t want to end up like Jeanne Calment’s lawyer.

⚾ Primo Water’s regional brands – Ozarka, Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ice Mountain and Pure Life – are now the Official Waters of Major League Baseball.

💧 Michelle Obama’s kids nutrition brand PLEZi – also backed by Steph and Ayesha Curry – is launching its PLEZi Hydration line.

🎤 Nikaido Shuzou Co. has named Japanese pop star JUNON as a brand ambassador for the U.S. expansion of its line of shochu drinks.

🐕 Talking Rain is supporting the troops through its new partnership with K9s For Warriors, a charity that provides service dogs to military veterans with invisible wounds. The deal includes a co-branded Sparkling Ice 6-pack display for retail.