• 🥃 How Big Nose Kate Aims to Shake Up the Back bar
• 🇨🇩 Nespresso Invests in Congo
• 📉 Reed’s Sales Slide, But So Did Losses

Sojo Industries has a national footprint and utilizes robotics, mobility and software to deliver efficient packaging and assembly solutions to the food and beverage industry. Learn more

The Virginia Food and Beverage Expo, hosted by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on Wednesday, drew in nearly 200 local food and beverage brands with many showing off innovative, locally-produced brews.

Pure Shenandoah Hemp exhibited its 16 oz. CBD infused sparkling water line along with a range of tinctures and other hemp-based wellness products. The fully vertically-integrated company farms, processes and manufactures its products all at its Elkton, Va. location and is now working to move beyond CBD with the launch of its first D9 THC product later this spring. 

Buzzin’ Berry will launch with 4 mg THC, 8 mg CBD and 12 mg CBG per 12 oz. can. The product was previously sold as a CBD-only drink but consumers began expressing interest in the intoxicating cannabinoid, leading the brand to create a new iteration, explained the brand’s cannabinoid consultant Rachel Glodovic. 

Elsewhere on the floor, functional sparkling water brand Crunchy Hydration is working to secure a share of the hydration space with its 6 SKU line of waters. The drinks contain L-theanine, Vitamin D and Rosemary with select varieties also containing 15 mg of CBD or 50 mg of caffeine. The company started as a Virginia-based brick and mortar juice shop selling functional blends and has since expanded in the CPG space with the water line. 

Wizzie’s Tea was sampling its Lemon Mint and Peach Ginger brews which are made with organic and Fairtrade ingredients, including Ceylon black tea, spearmint leaves, cane sugar and lemon juice. The three generation, women-owned family business will expand its lineup later this Spring with a handful of new varieties. 

The names Jack, Johnnie, and Jim dominate the whiskey back bar, but one distiller wants to switch up that male-heavy roster. 

👃 As of today, Melissa Heim shifts from head of operations and product into her new title as CEO of Big Nose Kate, a move cementing her as the face of the western whiskey brand in the midst of its second capital raise. 

💰 Founded in 2021, the brand, named after an unsung Old West female figure, was backed early on by Springdale Ventures, Spirits Investment Partners and Goat Rodeo Capital, and later by comedic duo Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone. 

🤠 But the team behind the brand doesn’t rely much on its celebrity partners, and instead focuses on the legacy of the woman most known as partner in crime of Old West gambler and gunfighter Doc Holliday— a complex person larger brands couldn’t take on, said Heim. 

🌵 By championing unique blends distilled in New Mexico and using a nimble approach to market, the company is now expanding and aiming to “win the west.”

Read the full story on BevNET.

Nestlé Nespresso SA is looking to build up and support coffee farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with a new $20 million initiative to be invested over the next two years.

☕ Nespresso launched its Reviving Origins program in DRC in 2020 to support the Lake Kivu region’s coffee production. According to the company, the African nation has seen its coffee industry decline since the early 2000s amid political and economic instability.

➕ The program has supported the construction of a health center in the region, water system development, gender equity training programs, and business development working with farmers to help them build international relationships.

🧑🏿‍🌾 What they’re saying: “Kivu has the potential to be among the world’s great coffee regions,” Nespresso CEO Guillaume Le Cunff said in a statement. “In the context of escalating violence in eastern DRC where access to water is becoming insufficient, water-borne illnesses have resurfaced, and daily life is under significant upheaval, it is even more critical to help build community resilience, access to health care and clean water as well as support farmer livelihoods by continuing to give them access to the global market and empowering them in their agricultural transition.”

The perfect dairy alternative. Request your free sample today! Learn more

Ginger beer maker Reed’s, Inc. is continuing to reduce expenses quarter by quarter, saving $6 million last year, but it faced a decline in net sales during 2023, according to the brand’s latest earnings report.

📉 Net sales fell to $44.7 million in 2023, down from $53 million in 2022. In Q4, net sales were $11.7 million, down from $15 million the year before.

📦 CEO Norman Snyder, Jr. highlighted positive EBITDA gains in the second half of the year, but noted that short order shipments impacted sales and profit in the year.

🥂 The company is now working to increase inventory with two new co-packers online in order to prevent similar short orders this year.

Read the full story on BevNET.