• 🫐 Generous Brands, Sambazon Link Up
• 📈 Non-Alc Bevs Surge in Early June
• ☀️ SunOpta Completes Facility Expansion
• 📺 Marketing Efforts Around The Industry
• 🥤 National Beverage Corp. Q4 Earnings
• 👋 Hoist CEO Kevin Klock Departs

Bolthouse Farms’ and Evolution Fresh’s beverage products manufacturer Generous Brands is expanding its enterprise with a new integrated partnership with Sambazon and will now manufacture and distribute the brand’s bottled açaí juices and smoothies.

🥕 Generous Brands was formed earlier this year when Bolthouse, under private equity owner Butterfly’s guidance, separated into two entities – one for Bolthouse’s carrot business and one for beverage and salad dressings.

🤝 The Sambazon partnership is the first of its kind for Generous, but is likely to not be its last, as the company is in discussions with several other brands to forge similar deals.

📊 “We’re going to be active, looking at different opportunities in higher growth segments that we don’t currently play in,” said Generous Brands Chief Revenue Officer Phil Kooy.

🥣 Sambazon is a key importer and wholesaler of açaí in the U.S. and also produces a variety of food products including smoothie bowls and frozen desserts.The deal with Generous will only cover Sambazon’s CPG beverage products.

Insiders can read the story on BevNET for more details on the partnership.

Traditional non-alcoholic beverage sales accelerated in the first half of June as consumers felt the heat of summer, seeking refreshment and boosting NA beverage volumes, according to the latest analysis of NielsenIQ retail scanner data by Goldman Sachs Equity Research.

• Overall dollar sales were up by 4.7% in the two-week period ending June 15, 2024, picking up from +3.4% in the four-week period. 
• Volume sales rose 3.7% (up from +2.3% in the four-weeks) as cooling inflation led to a more modest 1% rise in average pricing for both the two- and four-weeks.

🥤 Carbonated soft drinks reported solid growth, up 5.9% in the two-weeks, but went against the overall trend as a 5.3% pricing jump made up for muted +0.5% volume. 

• The Coca-Cola Company reported dollar sales growth in line with the category at +5.9%, while PepsiCo gained 3% and Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) grew 5.4%.

⛱️ Sparkling water notched a big summer boost, as sales jumped up 9.8% y/y in the two-week period, with a 5.1% increase in volume and pricing up 4.6%. 

• Category leader Talking Rain was up 8.1% with many small players like Spindrift (+26.2%), Waterloo (+37.6%) and Liquid Death (+23.1%) gaining double-digits. However, LaCroix-maker National Beverage Corp. faced a 0.1% decline in the period.

⚡  After a monstrous rise the past few years, energy drink sales growth is slowing, up just +0.7% in the two-week period with volume sliding -0.4% against +1.2% average pricing. 

• Sales of Monster (excluding Bang) fell 1.7%, while Red Bull was up 1.8%. 
• Fast-rising performance player Celsius looked to be out of its triple-digit growth spurt, but maintained a healthy +22.1% rise in dollar sales.

Read the full report on BevNET.

Shelf-stable oat milk has been a high growth driver for natural foods business SunOpta over the past few years, and the company is showing no signs of slowing down as it announced the completion of a $26 million expansion for its Modesto, Calif. Production facility, which is set to increase its oat milk output by more than 60%.

🥛 SunOpta said the expansion to the 167,684 square-foot facility was the second largest project of its kind in the company’s history and brings the addition of new oat extraction production lines, in a press release yesterday. 

💰 Recall SunOpta’s uneven revenue streams in recent quarters. Amid that, it has seen oat products as a strong pillar – the strategy is also driving double-digit revenue increases. In Q4 2023, the company reported 14% revenue growth to $181 million, and in Q1 2024 it maintained those double-digit gains.

🏭 In addition to the California facility, SunOpta opened a $125 million facility in the Dallas/Fort Worth area last year, which included a production line for 330 mL products.

Insiders can learn more on BevNET.

Summer marketing campaigns are in full swing. Here’s a look at how beverage brands are capturing consumers as temperatures heat up. 

🧃 Bottled fruit juice smoothie producer Naked Brands has tapped tennis prodigy Coco Gauff as its first “chief smoothie officer.” The multi-year partnership will see Gauff collaborate with the brand on future innovations. 

💀 Liquid Death has teamed up with famed musician Ozzy Osbourne – who knows a thing or two about making poor decisions – in a new ad spot that advises kids not to snort the brand’s Death Dust hydration powder packets. 

🌄 Non-alcoholic canned cocktail brand Free AF has launched “The Driest January Campaign,” which aims to normalize the choice of not drinking. The brand is making this the driest July on Earth by giving away a road trip through the hottest, driest place on Earth – Death Valley, USA – to one lucky winner. 

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

La Croix producer National Beverage Corp. posted strong Q4 earnings this morning, with a company spokesperson dubbing it “the ‘best ever’ fourth quarter,” and pushing its stock price up 2.84 points to $46.96 per share, as of 11 am ET. Let’s take a look at the top line:

• Net sales increased $11 million to $297 million
• Gross margins grew 100 bps to 36.7% of sales
• Net income increased 20% (+$.47 per share) to $44 million
• Overall case volume grew 5%

“Innovative flavors and packaging remain the keys to our brand growth, with consumers and retailers alike enthusiastically embracing Mojito, our latest LaCroix offering, the new and unique Rip It energy fuel flavors and the recently introduced Shasta Zero Sugar favorites,” a spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

After spending the last two years as CEO at Cincinnati-based hydration drink Hoist, former Talking Rain president Kevin Klock is moving on to moringa as he shifts his focus to 4 Guys Beverage Co., the venture he quietly co-launched alongside ex-Blue Coast Distribution boss Ron Fournier and Bowflex co-founder Sandy Wheeler.

⚡ It’s not exactly a new role: the New Hampshire-based company began testing its first product – Orange Toucan, a moringa-powered energy drink – across New England back in 2021 in 10.48 oz. cans.

⬜ Under Klock’s leadership, Hoist found white space within a packed hydration category by leaning into military sales channels, representing about half of the total business.