• 🍹Skinny Mixes Unifies Brand Identity
• 🎆 Data: July 4th and On-Premise Spending
• 📲 TikTok Opens Ads to Bev-Alc Brands
• ❌ FDA Bans Brominated Vegetable Oil

The grocery delivery landscape has changed dramatically since the pandemic years forcing companies like DoorDash, GrubHub and Instacart to search for new ways to bring in additional revenue streams. Though many consumers have returned to in-store shopping, experts say it is essential for retailers to keep offering an online experience.

Lately, there appears to be a race among delivery platforms to line up partnerships with major grocery chains. It's been billed as a value-add for both retailers and third-party aggregators.

GrubHub has been on a tear in the past three months with Albertsons, Amazon and independent grocery store ordering platform Mercato as it makes its first expansions beyond restaurant delivery. Uber Eats has also made a major jump –  aligning with Instacart to share restaurant-delivery resources.

Meanwhile, DoorDash has also been lining up deals in beauty, home improvement and pet food and added Wakefern Food Corp.’s banners (ShopRite, Price Rite, The Fresh Grocer, Fairway Market, Gourmet Garage, and Dearborn Market) while expanding its partnership with Walgreens.

Some might call it consolidation. Others, like retail analyst Brittain Ladd, liken it more to “a publicity stunt.” Ladd’s skepticism lies in having found “no evidence” that either GrubHub or UberEats are increasing their sales by moving deeper into grocery delivery.

“I believe this is much ado about nothing,” he said.

Though it might seem like a lot of PR with little to show for moving the sales needle it does reflect something deeper from the retailer perspective. Having same-day and a one-stop delivery option has become a “necessity not an option,” said industry consultant Michael Sansolo.

GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats and Instacart provide an opportunity to bring more options to the shopping experience.

Folding prepared food delivery into the weekly grocery trip is all part of providing more convenience. Walmart acquired Shipt so it could handle its own delivery in-house. Not to mention, the mass retail giant has also flipped portions of its physical stores to serve as mini fulfillment centers. 

But for retailers without the financial muscle or existing infrastructure, third-party solutions like GrubHub, DoorDash or UberEats (and their human drivers) are cheaper and easier than building out or buying new delivery operations.

“The pandemic made remote shopping far more important [and] far quicker than anyone imagined,” Sansolo said. “Many thought they'd have years to create an omni-channel strategy but the pandemic made them act in days not years.”

Part of the continuing challenge will be providing the in-store discovery experience, which often drives impulse buying, in turn, increasing revenue for grocery retailers. Yet, providing the same shopping experience online as opposed to in store aisles is “not always realistic,” Sansolo said.

“It's still a journey and it's early. This may change.”

Go Deeper: Learn more about how instant delivery and convenience are shaping grocery operations.

The way in which consumers incorporate their favorite beverages into their day-to-day lives is ever-changing, especially in the coffee and tea space. Our capabilities in coffee and tea can offer you the flavors and ingredients that can shape your products into what consumers desire. Learn more

After fifteen years of selling syrups, sauces and drink mixes, Jordan’s Skinny Mixes is getting a makeover.

🪞 Its full range of products – over 100 different flavors spanning numerous categories, formats, nutritionals and use-occasions – will be folded into new “unified” branding across its icons, lock up, logo treatments and neck wraps, as well as adopting front-of-pack food photography.

🔊 CEO Tim Snyder said: “We got to the point where we have a great number of lines out there – we’re competing in four categories today, and we had four different looks and feels. [When] I talked with my team, [we said] there’s only one Nike swoosh – you don’t have multiple views of the Nike swoosh. What’s our equivalent of that?”

📈 The brand refresh also comes on the heels of significant growth, driven in part by popular TikTok trends, the rise of Ozempic use, momentum behind NA cocktails and more. 

BevNET Insiders can check out the full story to learn how Skinny Mixes is realigning its look for long term gains.

Planning on visiting your favorite watering hole this weekend or go grocery shopping and grill in? According to NIQ-owned on-premise data firm CGA, one in three Americans will go out for drinks while Numerator found that over a quarter (26%) of its survey respondents will be celebrating at home. 

💸 Drinking at restaurants and bars is expected to heat up this holiday weekend: July 4th ranked as the second-most valuable Tuesday of the year in 2023 for on-premise and the uplift in sales is expected to extend through the weekend.

☀️ For the home cooks: the majority of shoppers (63%) plan to make most of their purchases at grocery stores, such as Kroger and Publix, while 54% are heading to mass and club chains such as Walmart and Costco. Around 26% will hit up the liquor store.

🍺 Beer (41%), soft drinks (32%) and cocktails (31%) are the three most common summer drinks choices, while vodka (25%) and tequila (24%) are the two most-wanted spirits.

Read more about what’s on tap this summer. 

As TikTok’s user base has aged up, the popular (yet controversial) social media platform has recently opened up advertising on its platform to beverage-alcohol brands in the United States.

🍺 At least 73.8% of TikTok’s users are of legal drinking age (LDA), according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), which sets guidelines for members’ usage of social media for marketing, as do other bev-alc trade groups.

📝 As it begins to allow advertising from bev-alc brands, TikTok has also published its own rules governing U.S. advertising for alcoholic products, mixers and accessories, and events sponsored by alcohol brands. 

⛔ But now that TikTok’s audience has reached the LDA threshold, bev-alc brands need to be sure that the users their ads reach are also at least 73.8% LDA – which will likely further complicate how brands navigate these platforms.

BevNET Insiders can access the full story and learn everything there is to know about this new advertising avenue.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it has officially revoked a regulation that allowed the use of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food and beverage products as it potentially causes adverse health effects. Though few beverages use it in the U.S., it is used in small amounts as a stabilizer, often at a rate of about 15 parts per million.

🥤 BOV is often added to citrus drinks to prevent flavoring from floating to the top of a container and has been regulated as a food additive since its “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS) status was revoked in 1970.

😱 Bromine is a naturally occurring element with a “bleach-like odor” that dissolves in water and is often used as an alternative to chlorine in swimming pools, according to the CDC.