• 🆕 This Week’s Hot New Sips
• ⚠️ Cancer Risk Warning Coming to BevAlc? 
• 📈 RTDs Poised to Grow 6% Through 2028
• ⏪ How Global Youth Culture Defines Beverage
• 🚪 Canadian Co-Packer Shutters Plant

Whether it's a sober spritz, a zero-proof cocktail or a booze-free beverage, the adult non-alcoholic (ANA) category has evolved significantly in the last year with functional options intentionally crafted to contribute to experiential occasions.

Function Over Familiarity: Avoiding alcohol does not necessarily mean abstaining from feeling something. The ANA category is expected to deliver incremental growth of $4 billion by 2028, per a recent IWSR report, with much of the new product investment focused on brands with functional attributes.

Early adopters like Kin Euphorics, Aplós and Recess have all gone deeper into the set with new formats, differentiated varieties and portfolio extensions that lean heavily into specific use occasions and need states. Recess’s Zero Proof Mocktails have far surpassed the brand’s original CBD-infused relaxation drinks. Co-founder Ben Witte told BevNET Live Winter 2024 attendees that Mocktails now make up about 90% of sales.

Hemp-Derived THC Give Sober Drinkers A Buzz: This year, the cannabis beverage category found that distributing through bev-alc DSDs and selling to ANA drinkers was the key to unlocking a broader consumer base.

The coinciding timeline of consumer adoption of ANA and the rapid expansion of hemp-derived THC beverages has brought with it many innovations. Many canna-beverage brands are bringing new formats like pocket tonics and meltables to the set while others are expanding their portfolios from multiserve bottles for mixing THC cocktails to more convenience-oriented products like RTDs and infused liqueur squeeze bottles.

Despite the increasingly complicated legislation to regulate the category in many states, there appears to be a green-rush going on. Brands like Loverboy are trying their hand in the set as well as multi-state regulated cannabis operators like Tilray, Wana Brands and Curaleaf all leveraging their scale to maneuver into ANA-positioned cannabevs. 

Go Where The Drinkers Are: It’s unsurprising that the on-premise channel is one of the key areas that consumers are being introduced to ANA options. It’s not just bars and restaurants either; sports events, music venues, festivals and local cafés have also become a key part of the ANA equation.

As many bev-alc, conventional and mass retailers launched new ANA sets, smaller boutique non-alc retailers are finding that experiential retail can continue to drive sales. Not only can these NA bottleshops be places of discovery, but they can also stand in for bars, cafés or activation centers for the burgeoning ANA category.

BevNET Insiders can access the full report for all of the insight.

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 into a neat array. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside:

🍸 Just in time for Dry January, Sober(ish) and Cann have teamed up to launch the “Sober(ish) Cann-uary” sampler box that includes the former’s Giggle Grass (5 mg THC, 10 mg CBD) Shots and a curated selection of the latter’s THC-infused social tonics. 

🍓 Odwalla Drinks is kicking off the new year with a new collection of products, including Mango, Strawberry-Banana, and Berries smoothies and Orange, Guava and Ginger juices. 

🍹 This Girl Walks Into a Bar has released two new non-alcoholic cocktail mixers: Bloody Mary Mix and Pineapple Mint Mojito Mix. The low-sugar, low-carb, organic mixers have an SRP of $14.99 per 750 mL bottle. 

Keep an eye out for the full gallery on BevNET later today.

Start your 2025 off right by grabbing your tickets to BevNET Live at the lowest prices of the year! Super early registration pricing ends Friday, January 10, for our 2025 events in New York City and Marina del Rey. Don’t miss this chance to plan ahead and save $150 per ticket.

The health warnings around alcohol consumption are getting louder. A U.S. Surgeon General advisory issued today called for adding cancer risk to health warning labels on alcoholic beverages. 

• The advisory called for “a reassessment of the guideline limits for alcohol consumption to account for cancer risk” with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy adding that there is a “direct link” between consuming alcoholic beverages and increased risk of cancer “for at least seven types of cancer.”
• Murthy noted that more than half of Americans are unaware of the risk factors of cancer, and called on public health professionals and community groups to increase awareness. 
• The report comes as the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ alcohol consumption recommendations are being drafted and as bev-alc trade groups anticipate if the U.S. government, like other countries and agencies, will also dim alcohol’s healthy halo.

Access the full report on BevNET for all everything you need to know.

Spirits-based ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktails are still on an upward trajectory, but innovation is slowing, according to a new report. Here are the highlights: 

🍸 Canned cocktails are projected to grow at a 6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the U.S. through 2028, according to market research firm IWSR.

🌷 Vodka is the No. 1 spirit base in the segment, toppling tequila three years ago. But gin is gaining popularity as a base, driven by legal-drinking-age (LDA) Gen Z consumers.

🦥 Innovation in the RTD segment is finally slowing: Cocktails and long drinks are outpacing other styles in numbers of new entrants, making up about one-third of all RTD innovation products.  

• The combination of sustained growth amid declining innovation is a “great sign for the industry” according to the report, and gives drinkers anchors to explore the category versus overwhelming them with choices. 

⏩ As for the future, consumers entering the RTD segment are “younger and more male,” which “will have implications for the styles and flavors that outperform,” IWSR noted.

Read the full summary on BevNET.

Talking about “global youth culture” makes us feel old, but we’re doing it anyway. At BevNET Live last month, Heidi Dillon, CEO of Distill Ventures, broke down how the youngest generation is changing how we drink. 

• The largest and most diverse generation on the planet with a purchasing power of $360 billion demands transparency – 60% say they don’t trust claims brands make about their products. 
• Strong brands these days also focus on their subculture: they connect with an intersectional audience over whatever is authentic to that company; 82% of shoppers prefer a brand with values that aligns with their own. 
• Those tips are relevant as bev-alc brands try to transcend their category into non-alc by inserting themselves into moments that matter for their consumers.  

Watch the full video for all of the insight.

Canadian beverage co-packer Joriki Beverage has apparently shuttered its only U.S. location without warning, as employees in Pennsylvania say they were greeted on New Year’s Eve by termination emails.

📥 In the message, Joriki said it had been seeking “a going-concern transaction” to save the facility and was receiving “financial support from one of its major customers and primary lenders” to keep the doors open. However, talks with a potential buyer collapsed “just days before Christmas,” regional outlet Newswatch 16 reported, leaving 229 staff members jobless overnight.

🏭 Joriki’s website lists four co-man facilities, including three Canadian sites and the now-shuttered plant in Pittson, Pa. According to Newswatch, the company produced for Welch’s and Coca-Cola, among others.

🥛 It isn’t clear whether Joriki’s Canadian plants have been impacted by the closure, but the company has been under scrutiny this year after Canadian investigators pinned a listeria outbreak in both Danone’s Silk and Walmart’s Great Value brand non-dairy milks to Joriki’s Pickering, Ontario, facility. That outbreak killed three people and sickened at least 20 more.