• 🆕 This Week's New Products
• ⭐ Reviews? We Got 'Em
• 🗽 The Fight On DTC Spirits
• 🌄 BP’s Epic New Private Label
• 📈 RTD Spirits Nearly 25% of Volume
• 📝 Editor’s Note

Consumers are eager for beverages with little to no added sugar… but not all sweeteners are considered equal. Cargill beverage experts offer targeted insights and solutions, including understanding consumer expectations, which sweeteners are finding favor, and Cargill's approach to sugar reduction. Learn more

The CPG food and beverage business is tough, but the odds are stacked even higher against minority and BIPOC-owned businesses. 

With President Trump pushing to roll back public and private sector diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, even more cracks in the limited, existing systems have begun to show.

Context Counts: This group receives a disproportionately small percentage of institutional funding and market access support.  

• A total of $730 million was allocated to black-owned businesses in 2024, or around 0.4% of all investment dollars
• In 2023, funding to black founded startups fell 71%, far outpacing the 37% decline in overall funds allocated. 
• While nearly half of all small businesses fail within five years, the rates are even higher among BIPOC businesses: 80% fail within their first 18 months due to a lack of resources and funding. 

“When [brands] are disappearing off the shelf – there's fear,” said Victoria Ho, founding member of :INCLUDED CPG and the creator of Kahlo, an olive oil cooking paste. “We don't know whether it's because retailers or decision makers are actively now stifling emerging brands founded by people of color, or if it's because of the lack of support and again, systemic issues.”

Insiders can access the full story to hear why founders are questioning the intent and impact of these programs and learn how the industry can continue to support underrepresented communities.  

It’s Friday, so we have a packed gallery of new drinks. Along with a slew of powdered supplements, the spring weather is bringing out lemonade to sip in the sun. Let’s pour a quick sampler of what’s on tap this week:

☀️ Jordan’s Skinny Mixes added to its Lemonade & Tea line with a new, low-calorie, zero sugar options: Watermelon Lemonade and Peach Tea.

🍹 Kate Spade brought mixers to its Target collection with two 6 oz. bottles for summer cocktail-making. The cobranded products are available in Lemonade in the Shade (lavender, lemon and rosemary) and a Desert Squeeze (prickly pear with lime).

⛳ Brew Dr is getting into the summer feel with its take on the classic Half & Half (or Arnold Palmer for golf fans). The new Iced Tea Lemonade kombucha  brings black and green tea together with lemon in a probiotic blend.

🆓 Check out the full gallery on BevNET for more.

This week at BevNET we rounded up La Colombe’s new indulgent draft latte, Halfday’s revamped take on an Arnold Palmer and Starbucks’ latest return to energy drinks.

Then, we chronicled our thoughts with each swig, highlighting aspects of the brand, liquid and product positioning that stood out and things the company could consider for next time. 

🆓 Check out this week’s review roundup on BevNET.

Explore Silgan’s new Aseptic Advantage Hub—a resource for aseptic-ready closures, sustainability insights, and decades of expertise. Designed for OEM fillers and brand owners. Whether you fill it or sell it, we’re here to help protect it. Learn more

Founder of LA-based The Obscure Distillery, Théron Regnier, wants to ship spirits to his New York fans so badly that he’s suing the state of New York.

☀️ The distillery is taking on the Empire State in a federal lawsuit filed this week challenging direct-to-consumer shipping laws prohibiting distillers in California from sending spirits to customers in New York.

💻 The complaint comes less than a year after New York distillers and cideries celebrated a bill that made New York the ninth state to allow direct-to-consumer shipments within its borders. 

⏪ But the new law only allows out-of-state distilleries to ship to New York consumers if their home state offers reciprocal privileges, which California does not. The suit argues that part of the law violates a clause in the constitution. 

Read more about the case and other efforts to open DTC shipping for spirits.

BP is catching up with the private label craze. The gas station chain is launching a new label called Epic Goods, featuring over 50 different products at its U.S. convenience stores including ampm, Thorntons and TravelCenters of America.

🦈 Epic Goods offerings include alkaline water, pretzel twists, gummy sharks and nuts, among others.

🤑 Private label store brand sales reached $271 billion in the U.S. last year, according to NACS Daily, up by around $9 billion from the year before.

🏪 BP joins the ranks of CVS, Target, Gopuff and Walmart’s respective pushes deeper into private label in the last couple of years.

Catch Up: Private Label Proliferates

Spirits-based RTDs now make up nearly 1/4 of total spirits volume, according to research firm S&D Insights.

• The segment has been rapidly increasing share since 2020, growing from 5.1% to 22.7% over the four-year period, and is “very much likely” to reach 25% in 2025.
• RTDs have also been the largest growth segment for spirits, with a compound annual growth rate of 53% between 2019 and 2024.
• However, growth has slowed, peaking at 47.5% in 2023. And economic factors such as tariffs could be costly for RTDs and the overall spirits category, according to the firm. 
• With RTDs already dealing with a parity price issue compared to FMBs, which are generally taxed lower, consumers may begin to balk at the cost of spirits-based products.

Catch up on the latest RTD cocktail launches.

It’s with great sadness that we’re writing to note the passing of Jack Craven, the Chairman of BevNET, father of our CEO and founder, John Craven, and father-in-law to our COO, Carolyn Craven.

Jack died earlier this month after a brief illness. At just 74, he was taken far too soon, both for his family and for this company. Jack embraced and partnered in John’s unconventional idea: that a love of beverages, a gift for online media and an entrepreneurial spirit could develop into the successful CPG trade platform it is today.  

As a publishing executive specializing in finance at companies like American Media, Inc., Time/Warner, Jobson Publishing, and Lear’s magazine, Jack brought his own formidable experience in media to BevNET.  

As an early investor, advisor, and voice of experience at BevNET, Jack contributed mightily. The early BevNET team had the pleasure of sharing meals and jokes with Jack during our Harvard Square years, when he was a frequent visitor looking through our receivables for any missed “loot.”

As we grew into a larger company, Jack’s day-to-day role within BevNET gradually waned, but he remained an enthusiastic and beloved member of the team. He was a frequent attendee at BevNET, Nosh and Brewbound events in both New York and Los Angeles, happy to shake the hands of his old friends while also meeting the new team members. We will all miss him terribly: his generosity of spirit, his good humor, and most of all, his obvious pride in what his son had built.