• 😱 Celsius Investors Shy Away After Inventory Cut
• 🏪 7-Eleven Pushes Back On Acquisition Offer
• 📈 Report: New-to-World RTDs Are Winning
• 🔫 KDP to Distribute Black Rifle Energy
• 🏛️ Albertsons CEO Takes The Stand

Craft juice company Perricone Farms is squeezing out new opportunities for expansion. This week the company announced its acquisition of Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Natalie’s Orchid Island Juice Company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

The merger will allow Newport Beach, Calif.-based Perricone Farms to take advantage of bi-coastal production facilities, improve its delivery capabilities, expand its product offerings and leverage its additional scale to ensure the quality of both companies’ juices, the company announced in a press release.

“Natalie’s commitment to producing the highest quality products, combined with unmatched customer service, aligns with the core values we have been providing in the marketplace for years,” said Bob Rovzar, CEO of Perricone Farms, in the release. “Together, Perricone Farms and Natalie’s are now better equipped to ensure the continued success and growth of both brands.”

Founded in 1989, Natalie’s started out selling orange and grapefruit juices but now boasts a wide range of juice products, including holistic juices, citrus juices, exotic blends and lemonades. Earlier this year, CEO Marygrace Sexton told Modern Retail that Natalie’s is on track to bring in $140 million in revenue in 2024. 

Natalie’s refrigerated lemonade sales were up 27.4% to $2.52 million in the 52-week period ending July 14, according to Circana retail data covering total U.S. – MULO with c-store, including grocery, drug, mass market, convenience, military and select club and dollar retailers. Category leader Simply saw sales drop 1.7% to $669 million. In orange juice, Natalie’s sales increased 4.6% to $31 million as compared to the overall category, which fell 4.4% during the same period. 

“The impressive growth that has driven success behind the Natalie’s brand for the past 35 years has been built on the brand loyalty and relationships we have established with our customers and consumers. Natalie’s has been built to last and will be providing you with authentic juices on a worldwide scale for generations to come,” said Sexton in a statement. 

Perricone Farms was founded in 1994 by Sam Perricone – one of the largest citrus growers in the U.S. at the time – along with his eldest son, Joe. The company offers a range of citrus and apple juices in both conventional and organic varieties produced at its manufacturing facilities in Beaumont, Calif., and Vero Beach, Fla. 

As part of this week’s transaction with Natalie’s, Perricone Farms will now also operate the facility in Fort Pierce, Fla. 

Check out the full story on BevNET.

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Investors are fretting over Celsius’s revenue outlook as PepsiCo is set to further reduce the brand’s inventory in its distribution network by between $100 to $120 million this current quarter – its third consecutive quarter with reduced inventory.

📉 John Fieldly, CEO of the energy drink brand, dropped the news yesterday at Barclays’ 17th Annual Global Consumer Staples Conference yesterday. Celsius Holdings stock price dropped around 12% after the announcement as investors and analysts predict Q3 results will reflect this drag.

✂️ Investment bank Jefferies called the move “massive” and said it is likely to cause Celsius’s first sales decline since Q2 2018. While the firm is still positive on the company’s long-term performance, the announcement coupled with “category slowdown and lack of visibility in the supply chain” has led it to cut its near term projections.

💫 Celsius has been one of the fastest growing brands in beverage for the past two years, growing revenue 102% last year. But recent retail scanner data has suggested its hockey stick spike is waning as the overall energy drink category’s growth spurt levels out.

Seven & i Holdings Co., parent company of convenience chain 7-Eleven, plans to tell Japanese Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. that its offer is not sufficient. The company also intends to highlight remaining competition concerns when it sends a letter to Couche-Tard on Friday, according to a report in Bloomberg. 

• 7-Eleven also will claim that the offer doesn’t reflect the value of the c-store chain and its growth strategy; the offer valued the company at $15 per share or about $42 billion, Bloomberg reported. 
• However, Couche-Tard is apparently ready to engage with 7-Eleven and work out a deal with new CEO Alex Miller telling analysts today that it can finance the deal and wants to work “constructively” with the chain. 

Spirits-based RTDs have a challenge ahead which includes maintaining double-digit growth rates in 2025 and decluttering items at retail in order for the segment to remain healthy, according to Bump Williams Consulting’s (BWC) monthly report. The data dive explores who's on top among spirits- and wine-based RTDs (of which there are now 3,000 items selling!)

• The top five RTD suppliers still account for two-thirds of total RTD dollars, but High Noon did drop nearly one share point of total RTD dollars YTD, and now 16 new-to-world brands within the top 30 have picked up a collective +7.4 points.
• New-to-world brands (brand families that didn’t exist before RTDs) are growing dollar sales while extensions (non-alc crossovers or spirit brands that have launched RTDs) are slowing. 
• Talk about a range: BeatBox, Surfside, VMC, Big Sipz, and Carbliss have the largest share gains.

Insiders can access the full report for all of the insights.

With C4 and A-Shoc already in its holster, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) is gunning to become an even bigger player in energy with a new long-term sales and distribution agreement with Black Rifle Coffee Company for the brand’s new line of RTD energy drinks.

⚡ Utah-based Black Rifle announced the upcoming energy line last month, teasing a Q4 debut with a nationwide rollout scheduled for early 2025. The drinks will come in four flavors containing 200 mg of caffeine per 16 oz. can.

🤝 The two companies first partnered earlier this year to produce branded Black Rifle K-Cup pods.

🚚 KDP made a big swing in the energy category in late 2022 when it invested $863 million into Nutrabolt’s C4 brand, striking a similar distribution deal with that company. However, its other energy partner, A-Shoc, has been shrinking considerably as NielsenIQ reports that brand’s U.S. retail sales down 88.2% in the two-weeks ending August 24 – posting just $6.5 million for the trailing 52-weeks.

In More Distribution News:

• Animal-free dairy milk maker Bored Cow is now stocked in Bristol Farms stores in California.
• Sol-ti is launching a new line of SuperStix powdered drinks at Whole Foods stores across the country. Each flavor is coconut water-based and certified organic with no stevia or cane sugar.
• Canadian energy drink brand GURU’s Zero Sugar line is now available in the U.S. launching online via Amazon and in brick-and-mortar with Life Time Fitness accounts.

The federal hearing on the proposed Kroger/Albertsons merger is beginning its eighth day in Oregon court and earlier this week Albertsons’ CEO Vivek Sankaran took the stand and attempted to clear the air around his opening claims that the company would have to shutter stores and lay off employees if the deal is blocked. 

🛒 Despite emphasizing that Albertsons is in “sound financial condition” he claims the company will not be able to compete in the future against Walmart, Amazon and Costco without the strength it would gain from combining with Kroger.

📲 Sankaran was also forced to defend himself and employees over a series of deleted text messages which the FTC believes include candid, insider opinions about how the merger will impact competition in the grocery industry.

💬 "Kroger is a competitor, but not our most important competitor," Sankaran said during the hearing, according to Law360.  

The CPG Week team dove into the details around Foxtrot 2.0, Foxtrot Café & Market, opening this week and discussed the disparaging response the announcement has received on social media. Nosh managing editor Monica Watrous goes on to recount her recent trip to Denver for New Hope Network’s inaugural Newtopia Now event and shared what attendees were saying about the new conference format. The podcast finishes with senior reporter Lukas Southard explaining the challenges and successes in the alcohol-removed and wine alternatives and how it represents broader issues in adult non-alc.

Listen to the episode on Nosh.

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