• ✨ BevNET Live: Building The Adult NA Category

• 🆕 This Week's Hot New Products

• 🧘🏼‍♂️ This Moment Is Worth $5M
• 🫨 RNDC Rocked By Brown-Forman Exit
• 🫖 ​​Checking In: It’s Tea Time at Luna Bay
• 🤓 The State Of State Hemp Bev Regulations
• 🤝 Refresco Acquires Another Manufacturer
• 🔥 Taste Radio: Austin, Unfiltered. Hot Takes From CPG‘s OG City.

L.A. Libations (LAL) is spreading the wealth – literally.

The California-based beverage incubator launched Taste Tomorrow Ventures, a new capital arm that has now closed a $30 million fund to invest in emerging beverage and snack brands.

Fund LPs include Ball Corporation and Advantage Sales and Marketing, alongside several undisclosed investors which include a “major retailer” and more than one “multi-billion dollar” public company, according to LAL co-founder and CEO Danny Stepper.

Former Virgo Investment Group partner Scott Guthrie has been recruited to lead Taste Tomorrow as managing director and the firm is already writing checks. The first official investment was made this year in RTD tea producer Just Ice Tea.

“We’ve been pretty dangerous without capital, so I’ve always had in the back of my head that if we had capital, which all these companies need, we have more access than anyone,” Stepper added. “With our LPs, I for sure know we are the most strategic investor in beverage.”

Check sizes will range from $500k to $1.5 million, with the emphasis being early-stage brands across food and drink. Besides the cash infusion, Taste Tomorrow will also be able to open doors for its portfolio brands through the broader network of LAL businesses, which includes distribution through HiTouch Libations DSD, marketing via L.A. Vibrations and merchandising with Relentless Advantage, as well as connections to business partners like Molson Coors Beverage Company and a murderers’ row of retailers.

Taste Tomorrow will likely come as welcome news to CPG entrepreneurs, who have struggled to raise capital in the post-pandemic marketplace, but it’s also not the only new fund opening up its checkbook. 

Brandon Alster, a former investor with Palm Tree Crew Holdings announced the launch of Sling Ventures this week as well, a firm focused on multiple industries, not to mention consumer-focused firm VMG’s whopping $1 billion fund earlier this month.

Insiders can read more exclusively on BevNET.

Retailers are carving out space. Consumers are looking to cut back without missing out. And the adult non-alcoholic category is expanding, but the path to scale is anything but straightforward.

At BevNET Live this June 11 & 12 in New York City, we’ll hear from three leaders working to define, distribute, and differentiate the next generation of adult NA brands. 

Scout Brisson, CEO of De Soi, will join Megan Klein, founder of Little Saints, and Jill Sites, EVP of Sales at The Pathfinder, for a conversation unpacking how brands in this emerging category are pushing toward national retail presence and mainstream recognition, without compromising their unique identities or functional missions.

Over 600 beverage industry professionals are already signed up. Don't miss out. Register today.

Whether it’s marrying banking with coffee, protein with caffeine, or fruit juice with a myriad of added benefits, this week’s new products have something to perk up everyone.

💳 Forget what’s in your wallet – it’s all about what’s in your mug for a special collaboration between Capital One Cafe and Verve Coffee. The brand’s Daybreaker is a new, classic blend exclusive to Capital One Cafe locations this month.

↗️ Splitting the difference between current trends in protein, energy and soda, Ryse Energy is complementing its 16 oz. Fuel Energy line with a new 12 oz. energy drink that contains 8 grams of whey protein and 150 milligrams of natural caffeine, plus prebiotics.

🍇 Plum juice may not be where we look first for beverage innovation, but maybe we should? SunSweet is eager to show off the fruit’s nutritional qualities with Plum Good, featuring no added sugar and 60 calories per serving.

Check out the full gallery on BevNET.

Btomorrow Ventures (BTV) is deepening its investment in relaxation drink Moment with $5 million in funding, the group shared with BevNET this morning. 

• The New York-based drink brand (which won BevNET’s New Beverage Showdown in 2020) received initial investment from BTV in 2021, followed by a second investment in 2022. 
• This latest capital infusion indicates BTV’s “long-term confidence in Moment’s vision and its potential to lead within the growing adaptogenic beverage space,” according to a statement. 

🆓 Anyone can access the full story on BevNET.

Whiskey giant Brown-Forman has made major distribution moves, shaking things up even more for one distributor that’s seen an exodus of major suppliers. 

• Following Brown-Forman’s exit from Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) in California this month, the Jack & Coke maker will now follow suit in other states.
•  The company is going with a hodgepodge of other distributors; Breakthru Beverage is now its largest national distributor. 
• The shakeup marks another big loss for RNDC, which has seen exits from Cutwater, Tito’s, and High Noon. 

What does the loss mean for RNDC’s biggest markets? Read the full story to find out.

For a brand, identity is everything – until it changes. That’s the scenario playing out at Chicago-based beverage maker Luna Bay. 

👣 After establishing a foothold in hard kombucha, the brand has since evolved beyond the category, mainly through its Zero Percent tea-based mocktail line launched last year. We caught up with founder and CEO Bridget Connelly just as Zero Percent rolls out revamped labels that seek to unify the ambitious brand under a holistic design. 

🤔 In its first iteration as a craft hard kombucha brand, Luna Bay’s vibes were “a little bit more delicate, almost a little bit more granola,” Connelly admits. But things came into focus after a label makeover and naming convention change, which now carries over to its fastest growing line, Zero Percent.

🛒 That doesn’t mean the brand is going conventional, though: along with retailers like Whole Foods, Kroger and now Sprouts nationwide, the non-alcoholic mocktails are moving through on-premise accounts like luxury hotel chain 1 Hotels and Lifetime Fitness as a premium wellness product.

In case you missed it, there’s new wrinkles in the ever-changing regulatory landscape for intoxicating hemp. Along with the Texas state legislature’s approval to ban all THC and THCA products last week, Tennessee passed a new law to align the category within the state’s three-tier system of alcohol regulation.

• House Bill 1376 moves hemp-derived products under the Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s (ABC) purview and streamlines regulations for hemp-infused beverages in cans 12 oz. or larger. 
• Smokeable products, gummies and beverages smaller than 12 oz., either need to be sold in age-gated stores or behind a barrier.
• In Alabama, a similar law puts hemp-infused drinks into the ABC framework with a licensing structure for manufacturers, distributors and retailers.
• Meanwhile, a pair of Massachusetts bills would loosen the Bay State’s current stance on hemp-derived THC products and put category regulation under the commonwealth’s Cannabis Control Commission.

Learn how Iowa-based Climbing Kites is approaching the Tenn. law and catch up on other regulatory moves at the state level.

Dutch beverage producer Refresco said today it plans to acquire Norwegian drink maker Telemark Kildevann Holding AS (TKV), adding tow facilities to its own 75 manufacturing facility footprint. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

🏭 Refresco acquired three Coca-Cola Company facilities in 2022 and added Spanish plant-based drinks manufacturer Frías Nutrición in November.

🏛️ The Dutch manufacturer made headlines in August when it filed a lawsuit against former client Congo Brands over the cancellation of a long-term production agreement for sports drink PRIME. The suit was dismissed by a Delaware court over jurisdiction.

Go Deeper: Refresco Finalizes Frías Purchase

Big ideas, bold flavors, and unfiltered insights—welcome to Austin, where the future of CPG is being written in real time. At Taste Radio’s Austin meetup, we sat down with trailblazers and trendsetters – including Better Sour co-founder Bella Hughes to Torchy’s Tacos founder Mike Rypka and Snaxshot’s Andrea Hernández – who are redefining how brands are built and scaled. 

Listen to the episode now. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.