• 📊 Data: BevAlc Sales Steady, Spirits Volumes Dip
• 💸 Ex-Starbucks Chief Schultz Returns to Coffee
• 🍇 Welch’s & Vodka, Anyone?
• ☕ Coffee For TV Cowboys

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Today is Friday and you all know what that means…it’s NPG time! We’ve rounded up the hottest new products for you and packaged them together in a gallery just for you. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

🧇Leggo my Eggo (creamer)! Hot on the heels of its Nestlé Sensations Eggo Maple Waffle Flavored Drink, Nestlé announces the release of its new Coffee Mate Eggo Waffles and Maple Syrup Flavored Creamer. 

🍊Just in time for cold and flu season, juice giant Tropicana relaunches its Trop50 product as Tropicana Light.

🥤Luna Bay Booch drops its first non-alcoholic line, a family of tea-based mocktails dubbed Luna Bay 0%. The line features Blueberry Mint Mojito, Mango Mule and Raspberry Rambler varieties. 

Check out the full NPG on BevNET.

Spirits-based RTDs and FMBs are remaining steady, as volume declines slightly moderated across total BevAlc except spirits and wine, according to an analysis of NielsenIQ data by Goldman Sachs Equity Research. The data offers a glimpse of fast moving categories like:

🆙 Spirit-based RTDs which are up 34.4% in sales over the two-week period ending November 4, versus 35.5% for the four-weeks and 37.4% for the 12-weeks. 

🔥 Sales growth for wine-based RTDs like BuzzBallz and BeatBox were also strong at 33.1% for the two-week period, compared to 31.8% in the four-weeks and 25.9% in the 12-weeks.

😐 Category sales growth remained steady for FMBs too, up 13.1% for two-weeks in line with 13.3% in the four-weeks and 16.2% for the 12-weeks. But Hard Tea and soda both experienced declines, led by drops in Simply Spiked and Hard Mtn Dew. 

Read the full story on BevNET

Representatives from Albertsons Companies and its subsidiaries will be scheduling meetings with beverage brands attending BevNET Live Winter 2023 on Monday, December 4 and Tuesday, December 5. Walk away with insights and strategies that help you understand the most effective approaches for success within their retail stores nationwide. Register to receive the sign up form. Meetings are currently being scheduled - the sooner you register, the sooner you'll be considered.

Having seen his presidential ambitions quickly dim back in 2020, Howard Schultz is still hoping to change the world, though in a drastically different role. 

☁️ Alongside other strategic investors, the former Starbucks boss was part of a $20.3 million seed funding round in startup Cumulus Coffee, which aims to disrupt the coffee pod market with countertop machines that can produce 10 oz cold brewed coffee (including nitro-infused) or espresso in under 45 seconds. 

☕The new countertop coffee maker is now available for pre-order and will retail for about $599 each.

🧊 Cumulus is led by former Starbucks executive Mesh Gelman, who worked at the Seattle coffee company for over six years, most recently as SVP at innovation wing Siren Ideas. Mesh’s former boss Schultz said in a statement that Cumulus’ equipment offers significant opportunity in an environment where “consumers have overwhelmingly switched to cold versus hot coffee.”

We're living in strange times -- Snoop Dogg is quitting 'smoke,' Marvel movies are bombing at the box office and now to make things even more bizarre, grape juice maker Welch's is apparently boozing up with a four-SKU line of spirit-based, 7.5% ABV Craft Cocktails

🍉 The 12 oz. canned line features three vodka-based cocktails made with juice -- Vodka Transfusion, Vodka Cranberry and Watermelon Mule -- and a fourth, Passionfruit Mojito, that's just "made with spirits," per the front label. 

🙃 Oh the delicious irony: As young adults choose to abstain from alcohol in record numbers, brands with a healthy stake in the kids market -- not just Welch's, but also the likes of Sunny D and Mott’s -- have been looking to tap into consumer nostalgia to break into the RTD cocktail segment.

We’ve posted the agenda for BevNET Live, taking place Dec. 3-5 in Marina del Rey, Calif. You’ve already heard about some of the headline entrepreneurs, from brands like Zevia, Harmless Harvest, Wild Wonder, Hop WTR, and Chamberlain Coffee and investors like Humble Growth and GroundForce Capital, but we’ve got so much more for you to check out on the stage. Read the story.

As the franchise itself continues to expand, several of the people behind Paramount’s hit series Yellowstone have used the show’s popularity to leverage opportunities in CPG. This time it's series star Kevin Costner who’s co-opting the mystique of cowboy hat-clad ranchers to market products; in this case it’s coffee, with Green Mountain Coffee's Horizon Blend by Kevin Costner, set to launch next month.

🤠 Fellow Yellowstone actor Cole Hauser recently launched his own java brand, Free Rein Coffee Company, last month tapping into consumers’ perceived connection between cowboys and steaming metal mugs of coffee. Creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan is also in on the beverage action with his 6666 Grit & Glory line of premium beers, ranch water and RTD vodka cocktails.

🥓 The hit television series has also released its own collaboration of cowboy-inspired products with Foodstory including breakfast sausage, bacon, smoked meats and baked beans.

🤩 Though lagging behind spirits, coffee seems to be one of the biggest drink categories for celebrities to put their money (and make more) with the likes of George Clooney’s partnership with Nespresso, NBA star Jimmy Butler’s BigFace Brands, Martha Stewart’s ULIVjava and Jennifer Lopez’s investment in Super Coffee maker Kitu.

We’ve all seen the cute, clever and occasionally terrifying images created using ChatGPT and other AI generators. But can CPG companies utilize these apps in a meaningful way? The hosts discussed potential ways that AI might help make certain processes more efficient. They also spoke about why a food brand’s recent packaging revamp is excellent in every way and riffed on a spicy and sporty LTO.

Listen To The Whole Episode