• 👋 RNDC CEO Ouster
• 🐒 Blue Monkey's Fresh Cash
• 🐔 USDA: $1B To Fight Bird Flu
• 💪🏼 Laird's Strongest FY Earnings
• 💰 7-Eleven Buyout Bid Fails
• ⚡ Spindrift Soda & Alani Nu Acquired

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

Last year wasn’t easy if you were looking for growth capital. The number and value of transactions hit their lowest point since at least 2020, but even in a tough year, beverage brands that showed organic growth were also able to find investors willing to back expansions. 

Investors remained interested in the energy drink and modern soda categories, as well as protein-enhanced drinks and NA beer. The scarcity of big beverage transactions made it pretty easy to pick out the year’s most significant signings; however, the repercussions from these deals are already echoing into the new year.

Strategic Deal: KDP Buys Ghost. In October, KDP forked over just shy of $1 billion – and is on the hook for at least $1.6 billion total – to pick up ownership of Ghost, another fast-rising energy drink and supplement company at a valuation of around three times projected net revenue for 2024.

The deal was followed by a restructuring of the executive ranks at KDP, with strategy chief Justin Whitmore now leading a complex energy portfolio that includes C4 (KDP owns a big chunk), Ghost, Black Rifle Energy and Bloom (C4 is an investor).

• And it was followed, of course, by Celsius’ purchase of Alani Nu this year, keeping energy in the spotlight.

Private Equity: Spindrift Docks with Gryphon. The $640 million purchase of a majority share of Spindrift by Gryphon Investments (agreed to at the end of 2024 but not announced until January 2025) won’t solve all of the premium sparkling water brand’s challenges, but it does offer the company and the investor the advantage of time to figure them out. 

After 15 years, it’s not surprising to see company founder Bill Creelman wanting to get a return on his hard work without necessarily having to reach a final exit. Especially when strategic buyers seem scarce and hard to satisfy… and Coke and Pepsi have their own category entries.

• Creelman remains Board Chair with what has been termed “a significant stake” in Spindrift and former Boston Beer leader Dave Burwick is now CEO.

Spindrift has done a great job establishing itself as a premium product, but it’s proven to have a harder time extending into convenience – the channel that takes many beverage brands across the billion-dollar threshold. 

It’s not clear that convenience is the goal, however. Spindrift’s hot-off-the-presses announcement of a low-sugar soda may be a sign that it instead plans to push deeper into existing channels to find incremental growth. 

Check out more analysis of 2024’s biggest deals, including a tally of investments over $5 million  – and a taste of the 2025 investments we’d all like to see.

It’s been a rough start to the year for Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC). 

⚓ After two major suppliers jumped ship from the distributor’s California book, its CEO is now out as well. 

❌ Nick Mehall, CEO and president of RNDC, departed on Wednesday, according to an email sent to company employees yesterday morning. Robert Hendrickson, RNDC chief operating officer and executive vice president, will temporarily step into the role. 

🚚 The swift change comes two days after Brown-Forman announced it was ditching RNDC for evolving total-beverage distributor Reyes Beverage Group in California, and not long after Tito’s (the top-selling spirit) announced it was making the same move. 

Read the full story for more on what’s gone down at the country’s second largest bev-alc distributor.

Blue Monkey Beverages got a cash infusion from Boyne Capital this week (a Florida-based private equity firm specializing in companies with sub-$100M in revenue), along with Fifth Ocean Capital.

• Fifth Ocean principal Steve Beck will be taking the reins as CEO of Blue Monkey, per terms of the deal.
• Blue Monkey’s been around since 2009 with its portfolio of plant-based drinks including watermelon juice and coconut waters.
• The size of the investment wasn’t made public, but Beck said the company plans to use the cash to create new products and add new customers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing $1 billion into a “comprehensive strategy” to curb the spread of bird flu, protect the U.S. poultry industry and reduce egg prices, secretary Brooke Rollins said. 

💵 The five-pronged strategy includes an additional $500 million for biosecurity measures, $400 million in financial relief for affected farmers, $100 million for vaccine research and efforts to reduce regulatory burdens and explore temporary import options.

• The USDA will expand its Wildlife Biosecurity Assessments to producers nationwide, starting with egg-layer facilities. 
• The agency believes this will safeguard farms from the cause of 83% of bird flu cases: transmission from wild birds. 

Go Deeper: How Is the Avian Flu Outbreak Impacting CPG?

Laird Superfood finished 2024 with its strongest year-end sales performance since becoming a public company, CEO Jason Vieth told investors during its Q4 and full year earnings call this week.

• Net sales grew 27% to $43.3 million, with ecommerce up 32% to make up 59% of total sales.
• Wholesale improved 19% year-over-year with grocery distribution expansion and a solid showing in the club channel driving growth for brick-and-mortar.
• It’s a strong finish for Laird, which promised a return to growth back in its Q1 2024 report in May. The brand had struggled with sales since going public in 2020, but Vieth is now calling the turnaround initiative a success.

7-Eleven executives and its parent company’s founding family failed to secure necessary financing for its nearly $58 billion bid to buyout the global c-store operator and fend off a foreign takeover from Canadian Alimentation Couche-Tard.

• Couche-Tard has made two unsolicited offers to buy 7&i holdings (the parent company to the c-store chain), first offering $38 billion and later upping the ante to $47 billion.
• The company said it will continue to explore all opportunities to unlock shareholder value, including revisiting Couche-Tard’s bid.

Celsius Holdings is set to acquire competitor Alani Nu for a cool $1.8 billion. The CPG Week team digs into the deal details and analyzes the potential impact on energy drink category distribution as well as what the future could hold for prior owner Congo Brands. 

🍕 Pepperoni pizza soda – sip or spit? The group opines on Perfy’s limited-edition savory soft drink and why flavor novelty could be key to standing out in a crowded segment.

🥤Speaking of soda, sparkling water brand Spindrift is entering the segment with its latest launch – just once month after its acquisition by Gryphon Investors.

Listen to this week’s episode to learn more. Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Like what you are listening to? Please don’t hesitate to rate our show and leave a review on your podcast platform of choice.