• ❌ Brown-Forman Lay Offs 
• 🚚 Waterloo to The Rangers
• 🍸 Beyond Beer Tips Further Into Total Bev
• 📈 eGrocery Sales Jump 18.7%

• ♥️ How To Help: L.A. Fires Relief Efforts

Partner with Bio-Botanica for made-to-order botanical extracts crafted in our NY-based GMP facility. Our alcohol-free and glycerin-based ingredients support innovation across beverage, supplement, and functional wellness formats. Learn more

Juice-infused sparkling water maker Spindrift has reached an agreement for San Francisco-based private investment group Gryphon Investors to acquire a majority stake in the company.

• The announcement will also see the Massachusetts-based brand tap experienced CPG executive Dave Burwick as its new CEO. 
• Current CEO Bill Creelman will retain a “significant equity stake” while shifting into a new role as chairman of the board.
• Spindrift dollar sales totaled over $275 million while volume increased 22% during the 52-week period that ended December 28, 2024, according to Goldman Sachs analysis of NielsenIQ data. 
• A Wall Street Journal story in December indicated that a deal with Gryphon Investors could be valued north of $650 million.

Check out the full story on BevNET.

Brown-Forman is laying off 12% of the company’s 5,400-person global workforce and closing its Louisville-based cooperage. The company will also be restructuring its executive leadership team, according to a statement.

🪵 By shuttering its barrel-making operation in late April, approximately 210 hourly and salaried employees will be impacted (those individuals are part of the 648). Brown-Forman was the only major spirits company still producing its own barrels, but will source barrels from an external supplier moving forward. 

💸 The sale of the cooperage will generate more than $30 million in proceeds in addition to the approximately $70 to $80 million in annualized cost savings generated from the restructuring.

📉 The layoffs come following four straight quarters of sales declines, and as other major bev-alc companies also slash their workforce.

🐝 The Portland Trail Blazers are putting some buzz back into their season, partnering with Beekeeper Coffee to bring a branded RTD coffee cart to its arena, the Moda Center.

🏒 In another sports deal, Waterloo Sparkling Water is now an official partner of the NHL’s New York Rangers and will be available at concession stands during games at Madison Square Garden.

🪽 Hemp THC beverage brand Flyers Cocktail Company has enlisted with wholesale wine and beer house Tryon Distributing in North Carolina.

🍊 Evolution Fresh’s Real Fruit Soda line is launching in coolers at select Whole Foods Market stores across the country.

Twisted Tea will soon be spiked with vodka and White Claw is aiming to tear further into spirits, according to leadership of the beyond-beer brands during the Beer, Wine & Spirits Summit on Monday in Palm Beach, Fla. 

☀️Boston Beer’s Twisted Tea, the leader in the malt-based hard tea space, will introduce a vodka version following in the footsteps of its own Sun Cruiser and independent RTD Surfside, which “revealed the opportunity with their success,” said Jim Koch, Boston Beer founder. 

• Koch admitted rival Sun Cruiser was getting its “ass kicked in the Mid-Atlantic” region where Surfside reigns, but thinks there is a market for premiumizing Twisted Tea. 

🚚 Meanwhile, Mark Anthony brands will be pushing two of its acquired spirits-based Canadian RTDs into the U.S. this year – Olé and Dillon’s – as well as introducing a White Claw extension, malt-based 7% ABV “Clawtails” inspired by staple cocktails (margarita, cosmo, etc.) 

Stay tuned for more on the site about the hard seltzer leader’s plans to go deeper into spirits.

December’s online grocery sales climbed 18.7% year-over-year to $9.6 billion, according to the latest Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey, with all three fulfillment methods – delivery, pickup, and ship-to-home – posting gains.

👀 December marked the fifth straight month where online grocery sales were above $9.5 billion. 

🚚 The three fulfillment methods all reported similar shifts in sales performance between the first and second half of the year. Delivery grew from 4% in the first half to 25% in the second half, ship-to-home jumped from 5% to 20%, and pickup shifted from a 4% decline to an 8% gain. 

💭 “While subscriptions and memberships aren’t new, the deep discounts were new, and they resonated with customers by offering the opportunity for significant savings,” said David Bishop, partner at Brick Meets Click, in the report. 

One of PJ Monte’s early sales pitches startled a woman so much that she clutched her purse. A few weeks later, PJ’s tomato sauce was on the shelves of her husband’s influential grocery store. It’s one of dozens of stories that PJ, a streetwise, fedora-wearing entrepreneur, has about the development of his acclaimed sauce and pasta brand Monte’s Fine Foods. 

Listen to the episode now.