• 🆕 Distribution News
• ❌ Little Saints Drops CBD
• 📊 Report: Consumers See Economic Clouds Ahead

BioSteel’s new owner is crowdsourcing advice on how to proceed with the brand’s NHL partnership. Coachwood Capital founder Dan Crosby, who picked up BioSteel following Canopy Growth’s court-supervised sale last month, teased on LinkedIn this weekend that he would release a financial update on the brand’s performance as soon as today while also asking his followers for input on how the company should approach the sports drink’s premier league partnership.

🏒 BioSteel was named the Official Sports Drink of the National Hockey League (NHL) in 2022 – a fitting partnership for a brand that was originally created by hockey players.

🗣️ Feedback in the comments to Crosby’s post came from a number of CPG executives and athletes, and it varied in perspective from the negative (“[Y]ou have maximized that partnership to the point of diminishing returns”) to the optimistic (“I think young hockey players like imitating their favourite players so the visibility is a positive”).

💸 Le’Mae Reeves, a former logistics specialist at Canopy Growth, offered some inside perspective, noting that she was responsible for sending out and picking up beverages and merchandise at each NHL stadium. While she said players “loved” the drink, the deal was “not efficient” and excessive merch, such as tote bags, led to excessive shipping costs for the brand.

Are you bored of bland seltzers and sick of overly sweet juices? Fill the holes in your beverage line up with MASH by Boylan Bottling - the low calorie, bold flavored fruit drink available in 4 unique flavors. Contact us for samples and distribution information today! Learn more

Drink makers are not slowing their growth just because it's the end of the year. As consumers flock to stores shopping for holiday gifts and hosting family and friends for parties, they are also stocking up on refreshing drinks to bring home. Let’s dive into some recent distribution wins for beverage brands.

💧 Vienna-based hydration brand waterdrop is now available in Sam’s Club locations. Walmart’s club store chain is carrying waterdrop’s starter kit for $19.98 each which includes the brand’s 20 oz. glass bottle and flavored hydration tabs.

🌱 Southeastern natural food chain Earth Fare is adding CBD-infused beverages and oils (seven SKUs each) from UK-based wellness brand TRIP. 

☕ Cold-brew coffee company Wandering Bear has entered Sprouts Farmers Market with its 32-ounce cartons in 3-SKUs — Straight Black, Vanilla and its newest variety, Decaf. The Decaf launch is exclusive to Sprouts until March.

🚛 Leveraging its partnership with Bayonne, New Jersey-based distributor Rainforest Distribution, Sanzo is now available in New York specialty grocery store Union Market.

As many functional beverage brands have looked to move beyond the CBD trend (see also: Recess, VYBES, Daytrip), non-alcoholic cocktail maker Little Saints is the latest to drop the cannabinoid from its ingredient panel entirely.

🍄 The company announced on LinkedIn that it has replaced the CBD content in its canned “plant magic mocktails” with organic reishi mushroom extract, promising to deliver the same “take the edge off” effect of the original formulation.

💪🏼 Launched in 2021, Little Saints always included reishi mushroom in its recipe, but the new formulation uses a “new source” of extract that is “700x more potent than the average reishi powder,” claimed founder and CEO Megan Klein.

🏭 In a video posted to the brand’s website last month, Klein said the company has “for a long time” had difficulty in finding manufacturers capable of producing CBD in the brand’s small 8 oz. can size.

GlacierPoint Enterprises has acquired Bronx, New York-based specialty distributor Cool River Beverages LLC expanding its portfolio in beverages throughout the metro New York City area. Also headquartered in the Bronx, GlacierPoint (a portfolio company of Mill Point Capital) is a DSD distributor of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream and Unilever Ice Cream.

🧃Cool River, which operates as an exclusive distributor of Nestlé products, expands Glacier’s beverage portfolio and brings scale to the DSD’s reach in the Northeast.

💪 GlacierPoint already distributes Alani Nu, Chameleon Coffee, HUEL, Soylent and Nesquik while Cool River recently signed on energy brand NERD Focus as a partner in June.

The job report was optimistic, but seems consumers are not. A new report from Numerator may explain why shopper may be hesitant to splurge on luxury items, like fancy spirit bottles. 

65% of consumers feel as though the country is in an economic recession, and 67% think the U.S. economy will worsen in the next few months. 73% think inflation will increase in the next few months, according to the company’s consumer sentiment study.

That may be part of why high-end spirit sales are slipping, even if not in a recession, consumers feel like they are— and are still uncomfortable with discretionary spending: 71% are uncomfortable splurging on premium or “luxury” items and in response to inflation and rising prices, 43% of consumers plan to cut spending on dining out.

Analysts have warned to temper expectations based on last year’s pullback of high end spirits beginning in the holiday season, but we’ll have to report back on that in the new year.