• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Sips
• ☕ Westrock Coffee: Net Loss Comes Down
• 🥃 Data: Aged Tequila, RTDs Driving Spirits
• 🥛 SunOpta: Oat Milk Delivers More Volume
• 📰 NYT: Heat Waves, Droughts and Junk Food

“I'm blue, Da ba dee da ba di.”

FUL Foods might not be blaring Eiffel 65’s classic song “A Decade In Blue” throughout its production facility, but the spirulina drink company hopes to be as pervasive as the 90s house hit after its rebrand.

Launched in the U.S. last April, Netherlands-based ingredient innovation company FUL Foods' first attempt at a sparkling spirulina beverage, FULwater, was initially positioned as a detoxifying drink. Yet, it found that after a half-year sold in retail, detox is often associated with “bad flavor” or a “fishy taste” by consumers.

That’s enough to cause a deep look inward. In order to reach its target consumers more effectively, the company rebranded its drink as BLUwater, exchanging the “detox” callout on the front-of-can to a message that better conveyed the health benefits consumers were looking for: “antioxidant hydration with vitamin C.”

“Before, we were getting feedback that detox was too niche,” explained co-founder and CEO Julia Streuli. “When we were able to anchor it in something more established, like hydration, all of a sudden it was easier to place on-shelf and easier for consumers to understand.”

Along with bringing the health and environmental benefits of the sparkling spirulina drink to the side panel, BLUwater also inverted the cans’ color scheme and reformulated the recipe to reduce the sweetness from its original 8 grams added sugar to between 0 grams to 3 grams.

“It empowers the consumer to feel really good about grabbing this off the shelf, knowing that they're doing something really good for their body as well as the planet,” added FUL Foods head of marketing Emily Tayman.

The brand is taking lessons from other successful functional beverages with somewhat non-traditional ingredient decks.

Chlorophyll Water has found success touting its 100% recycled plastic clear bottles and leans into the vibrant green color of its hero ingredient. Michael B. Jordan’s Moss launched with an education-themed marketing campaign to bring awareness to the benefits of sea moss in one’s diet.

Already, BLUwater is reaping the benefits of its bolder color scheme, new packaging callouts and reformulation with revenue spiking 6x in July – a celebratory metric for the rebranded product’s first full-month in retail.

BevNET Insiders can read the full story to understand how BLUwater is working to set up its new iteration for success.

Today is Friday and you all know what that means…. It's new product gallery time! We’ve rounded up the hottest new products and packaged them up into a neat array. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

🥤Tru hopes to make a splash in the ever-growing prebiotic beverage category with its newest product, Tru Gutsy. The peach-flavored sparkling water is crafted with prebiotics, probiotics and fruit juice and has just 5 calories per 12 oz. can. 

☕BIGFACE, the coffee brand founded by NBA star Jimmy Butler, makes its first foray into the RTD space. Available in three varieties at launch – Original Oat Latte, Coconut Cinnamon Oat Latte and Ube Vanilla Oat Latte – the RTDs are made with the brand’s Doublestar coffee.

🧙Though many people (and brands!) are still focused on summer, some are already gearing up for spooky season. Enter Alani Nu, which is bringing back its Witch’s Brew energy drink flavor featuring notes of caramel apple. 

Check out the full new products roundup on BevNET.

Westrock Coffee may have just turned on production at its brand new $315 million  manufacturing plant in Arkansas, but the company’s Q2 earnings reflect the deep costs of that investment on its balance sheet.

• Net sales were down -7.3% to $208 million for the quarter, a decrease of $16.3 million. 
• Sales for the Beverage Solutions division were down to around $163 million in the period, compared to $189 million in 2023
• Meanwhile, net of inter segment revenues, SS&T was up to $45 million from $35 million the prior year
• Net loss for the period was just under $18 million, compared to $26.8 million for the second quarter of 2023. 
• The company incurred $13.6 million in start-up costs related to the opening of the Conway, Ark., coffee extract and ready-to-drink production facility, which is paired with a 530,000 sq. ft. warehousing and distribution center two miles down the road. 

Westrock completed its first commercial sale of multi-serve bottles and first commercial production of single-serve cans at the factory this quarter, said CEO Scott Ford. Yet “given updates to sales ramp viability” for the plant, Westrock is narrowing its guidance to $60-$65 million for adjusted 2024 EBITDA.

Go Deeper: Can a $300 Million Mega-Plant Make Westrock Coffee the New Kings of RTD?

WSWA’s SipSource has released data insights for the 12-month period from July 2023 to June 2024. Here’s what you need to know:

• Currently, premixed cocktails and tequila/agave spirits are the only product classes seeing growth. 
• Tequila Reposado continues to dominate (+10.7%), showing that premiumization isn’t quite dead, with products over $50 increasing by +25% and representing 32.8% of volume. Meanwhile, any agave-based product that is not silver, reposado, or añejo – shows growth driven by lower-priced products.
• The analysts’ noted that continued volume growth of RTDs is a plus, but lower prices are driving overall category revenue down.

After an encouraging earnings report from Oatly last month, the good news continues to flow for oat milk lovers. Plant-based milk supplier SunOpta is raising its full-year guidance on the back of surging volume and revenue in Q2, according to an announcement this week. 

🏭 The Minnesota-based company’s supply chain “supported a substantial increase in output” during the quarter: healthy volume growth (+26.9%) helped drive revenue up 21% to $171 million. Gross profit rose 17.3% to $21.8 million, while losses were down to $3.8 million from $11.7 million during the same period last year. 

💸 In response, SunOpta has raised its FY2024 revenue outlook to between $710 million and $730 million, compared to the previous range of $685 million to $715 million.

💰 The company produces a full suite of plant-based fluid milks but has continued to invest in oat milk production power specifically, most recently with a $26 million facility expansion in California. Its internally developed brand Sown recently launched creamers at Minneapolis grocery chain Lund & Byerly’s. 

In regions of the world where water is scarce and fresh food can be, particularly during times of extreme weather, hard to come by – soda and junk food flourishes, according to an opinion piece in The New York Times this week. 

🔥 As part of its What to Eat on a Burning Planet series, Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie explores how multinational CPGs often target climate disaster stricken zones, promoting junk food and soft drinks “under the guise of ending malnutrition.”

🧃 The piece also explores how these companies market towards children, particularly in regions of the world with high migration rates where they may be responsible for feeding themselves. 

🚑 Noting that many of these companies are often on hand to provide emergency food aid, the piece also explores the dark side of those efforts, including how these companies use that goodwill to mask less valiant efforts, like extracting water from drought-prone zones.