• 🌴 L.A. Libations’ New Advantage
• 🪞 How A Viral Marketing Campaign Sparked Mixoloshe’s Makeover
• 💰 Wild Common Nets New Investment
• 🇯🇵 Big In Japan: Calexo Expands Distribution
• 🚚 WTF Is Up With UNFI’s SSA?

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The relationship between brands and broadline distributors has always been fraught with potential peril and strife. And for many customers of UNFI, that pain now has a number.

The powerhouse national distributor’s new Simplified Supplier Approach (SSA) – which consolidates various service fees and add-ons into a single all-inclusive 2.5% tariff on all purchases – may be more streamlined than previous agreements. But that’s about the only thing everyone will agree on. 

Industry reaction since the announcement of the updated SSA policy in February can be politely described as “passionate.” On the one side are young brands and startups, to which the agreement provides a wealth of incentives: access to UNFI’s data and reporting is pitched as a big draw, as are waived compliance and slotting fees, the kinds of financial penalties that can really add up against their early orders. For its part, UNFI has painted the move as a path towards “less friction, more tools and a mutual focus on brand growth.” 

But “incentives” can be subjective. For more mature brands that don’t need what the new SSA is selling, the 2.5% rate is a challenge to be navigated, rather than the “brand growth” sparkplug it’s been pitched as. 

“They're looking to pull a rabbit out of a hat,” said Greg Esslinger, a former UNFI supplier relationship manager and critic of the new SSA. “That's what it boils down to. They had to find a way to come up with the shortfall that they were getting.”

We’ve spoken with a wide range of suppliers, grocery analysts, consultants and more as the new policy change has rolled out and began taking effect over the past month. While many have pointed to issues with the new fee structure that will likely push prices up and spark additional challenges challenges, others have managed to hurdle the new policy change altogether. But even for the latter, skipping out SSA will come at an unforeseeable cost. 

Then there is the data component to all of this – a major selling point UNFI believes will come alongside the all-inclusive 2.5% fee. Insights are always of interest to early stage companies but is this platform really worth the cost? And who does it actually help?

BevNET Insiders can access the full story and gain a clear understanding of the dynamics at play and all the points to consider about the new policy change.

An Instagram campaign started by an intern for the brand formerly known as Mixoloshe has ended with a rebrand after reels of her smashing cans went viral. 

📶 Yesterday non-alc cocktail Mixoloshe got a new name, SMASHD, after its campaign amassed over 120 million views and gained half a million followers. 

🗓️ Within 60 days of reels, “Nicole the intern” smashed cans in costume, with props and finally with a grand finale explosion to the delight of a new 530k following dubbed the Smash Army.

⚒️ We chatted with the company’s CMO and newly promoted intern about how the team’s experiments in social media cracked the viral code by staying product-agnostic and tapping into a storyline that would resonate with a millennial and Gen Z audience. 

BevNET Insiders can read the full story and learn how SMASHD strategized a storyline for its target audience.

Tip a glass of tequila to Wild Common who raised $5 million in a Series A round from HIPstr, the early-stage investment arm of HighPost Capital. The investment is said to support the tequila and mezcal maker as it scales the platform, enters new markets and grows its team.

🌵 Founded in 2021 by National Geographic photographer Andy Bardon, Wild Common is located in Jackson Hole, Wy., but sources its agave spirits from a Cascahuin area producer that has been distilling since 1904 in Jalisco, Mexico.

🥃 The company currently offers six varieties of agave spirits: three mezcals and three tequilas.

💲 HIPstr also participated in an investment round for Kylie Jenner’s RTD vodka soda brand Sprinter in May.

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CPG services provider Advantage Solutions Inc. and innovator platform L.A. Libations have entered a letter of intent to form a joint venture, dubbed Relentless Advantage, that will support LAL-affiliated brands as they expand nationwide.

🏪 The venture expands the reach of L.A. Libations’ Relentless Trade Solutions merchandising business, utilizing Advantage’s network to extend services across the country for its portfolio of partner brands.

📸 L.A. Libations CEO Danny Stepper said the move comes as early stage brands, often driven by powerful influencer partners, enter mainstream retail chains like Walmart earlier in their life cycles.

Read the full story on BevNET.

Los Angeles-based Calexo is heading to the Land of the Rising Sun bringing its un-infused beverages to Japan. The new distribution deal is with Japanese distributor and organic grocer Oisix and will offer all three of Calexo’s varieties: Citrus Rose, Cucumber Citron and SemiTropical. The company has even appointed a new CEO for its emerging Japan business who hails from Amazon Asia and has been working on bringing the brand into the Asian market.

🏪 The BevNET Live Winter New Beverage Showdown winner has been steadily building its reach in liquor stores and other bev-alc retailers throughout the country while simultaneously  unlocking new opportunities abroad.

🚛 The brand is working with beer DSDs like AB InBev in New England, Gasko Meyer in Tennessee, Mexcor in Texas and has been in talks with Reyes Distributing.

⬆️ On the back of these distributors, Calexo has been able to open up new retail partnerships in about 10 new states including Florida, New Jersey, Nebraska, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana bringing the brand to about “three-fifths of the country,” according to co-founder Brandon Andrew.

Go Deeper: Calexo Aims To Capture Minnesota Effect With New Business Model

Natural channel distributor UNFI instituted a policy change on May 1 called the Simplified Supplier Approach (SSA) and as you read above – reactions have been mixed at best. The new policy was said to combine many common compliance fees into a single, 2.5% charge. It was originally touted by the distributor as a way to reduce friction, but many suppliers aren’t so convinced. 

The CPG Week team ran down the new policy, shared reactions from industry stakeholders over the last few months and made some predictions on how this change could impact the natural retailers and consumer pricing down the road.

Listen to this week’s episode to get a full overview of the policy change.

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