The Top 10 Most Read BevNET Stories of 2021
Whether it was closing deals, filing lawsuits or simply reshuffling product rosters, 2021 saw beverage industry operators staking out positions and fighting to defend them in a variety of ways. As is tradition at BevNET, here are our Top 10 Most Read Stories of the year. Vanessa Hudgens and Oliver Trevena
Having originally debuted in 2014, California-based cactus water brand Caliwater relaunched in April with the addition of some star power from its new founding team, which includes actor/filmmaker Oliver Trevena and actress Vanessa Hudgens. “You think of coconut water and obviously that’s a massive billion dollar market now, as people are aware of coconut water and its health benefits,” said Trevena, an early investor in the brand. “Cactuses have many of the same health benefits, if not better for you. It’s got digestion, skin, all these functional benefits that coconut water has, but it also does taste great as a mixer as well, which I think is where we have an actual leg up in the market.”
With Hudgens, the company has an ambassador with massive reach, including over 40.5 million followers on Instagram. “The most exciting thing for me about this is it’s something that I really love and I actually really want to share with the world,” she said. That’s what’s going to allow it to be organic for me as I share it across my media platforms, because it is something that I am genuinely drinking every day.”
Citing aluminum can shortages, Coca-Cola reshuffled the lineup to its flavored sparkling water line AHA back in March, dropping two flavors — Black Cherry + Coffee and Apple + Ginger — while adding Raspberry + Acai and Mango + Black Tea (the latter of which features 30 mg of caffeine) as permanent additions to the 8-SKU roster of zero-calorie flavored sparkling waters, sold in 12 oz. and 16 oz. cans. The brand also redesigned the labels for its pair of caffeinated SKUs to make them more distinctive. A large callout for “Caffeine” has been added to the front panels of both Mango + Black Tea and the existing Citrus + Green Tea. Fast-rising Super Coffee added more fuel to its engine in August with the closing of a $106 million Series C round led by Maryland-based venture group Durable Capital Partners and with participation by beverage industry veteran Clayton Christopher and former Peet’s Coffee CEO Dave Burwick, as well as another tranche from existing investor and distribution partner Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). The financing has helped fuel Super Coffee’s ambitions to push beyond grocery retail, which accounts for around 60% of the business, with CEO Jim DeCicco noting that convenience stores are its next target. Backing those efforts is 7-Eleven, which invested $2 million through its 7-11 Ventures division and rolled out four SKUs in cans and bottles to stores nationwide in August. At the time, DeCicco added that Super Coffee, named BevNET’s Brand of the Year 2021, was on pace for $100 million in sales for the full calendar year. Cold brew coffee maker Rise Brewing Co. won its trademark battle with PepsiCo in November, after a U.S. District Court judge in New York ordered the soda giant stop using the “MTN Dew Rise Energy” name for its branded energy drink line. In her opinion, judge Lorna Schofield ruled that Rise Brewing had presented sufficient evidence that MTN Dew Rise line had hurt its business and “demonstrated irreparable harm, a likelihood of success on the merits of the federal copyright claim and that the public interest weighs in favor of granting the injunction.”
Speaking to BevNET at the time, Rise Brewing Co. co-founder Grant Gyesky noted that the injunction, while not the final step in the trial, will help to alleviate a major “distraction” for the brand. “This thing has really been nothing but a detraction from the business; a detraction from sales, a detraction of resources, a detraction of our time,” Gyesky said. “So for all that to go away, it’s going to be a huge lift, I think, for the entire team to be able to get back to focusing on the business.”
Flavored water brand Hint, Inc. sidelined its CEO Kara Goldin and COO Theo Goldin in November, as the company’s board of directors voted to remove the pair from their current roles to unspecified new positions at the company. SVP of beverage, Blair Owens, took over as CEO. At the time, sources with knowledge of the company told BevNET that the leadership changes were part of Hint’s aim to start a new chapter of growth and take a strategic approach to succession planning. Last year, the company closed a $25 million Series D funding round led by Springboard Growth Capital, bringing the brand’s total lifetime financing to over $50 million. Natural food and beverage pioneer and entrepreneur Greg Steltenpohl, a leading voice in the plant-based movement over the course of more than 40 years in the business, passed away in March at the age of 67. The former jazz saxophonist was instrumental in developing the premium refrigerated juice category as co-founder of Odwalla (sold to Coca-Cola in 2001) before launching Califia Farms in 2012. In the ensuing years, the brand emerged as a leader in the fast-growing plant-based milk category, attracting a wide range of investors and culminating in a $225 million Series D funding round in 2019 led by the Qatar Investment Authority at a valuation of $5 billion. “It is with a heavy heart that we share the news of the passing of our company’s founder, Greg Steltenpohl,” the company said in a statement. “He built the Califia Farms brand from the ground up with a passion for nourishing people and the planet. Greg touched so many lives on his plant-fueled journey to make the world a healthier place. He will be profoundly missed. We tip our hats to our visionary founder.”
BevNET editor-in-chief Jeff Klineman wrote about Steltenpohl’s personal and professional impact in the March/April issue of BevNET Magazine. As the CPG industry continued to grapple with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) took a stand on the issue by suing the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) over its updated COVID-19 vaccination and testing standards in November. OSHA’s Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) called for employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers, working on either full-time and part-time schedules, are fully vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or to implement a policy allowing for weekly testing and face mask requirements for all unvaccinated employees. Together with 10 co-plaintiffs, NACS — which has 1,500 retail and 1,600 supplier members across the convenience and fuel retailing industries — argued in its suit that the new rules would heap further challenges on companies already struggling with worker shortages and supply chain gridlock. “By requiring NACS members to terminate employees during a labor shortage, the ETS will worsen the severe labor difficulties that NACS members are already experiencing,” wrote Lyle Beckwith, Senior VP of Government Relations at NACS. “The already tight labor market will make it immeasurably more difficult to replace employees, further hampering members’ productivity and functionality. The upcoming holiday season — during which many companies hire additional employees — will make hiring even more difficult.”
In addition to the NACS suit, OSHA’s ETS decree was met by a wave of lawsuits from individual state governments and other trade associations, and was temporarily blocked from taking effect by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last Saturday, pending expedited judicial review. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the case starting January 7, 2022. The ongoing legal disputes between fitness-energy drink brand Bang and its distribution partner PepsiCo continued in January 2021, as the former continued its efforts to extricate itself from the three-year partnership. In December 2020, an arbitrator ruled that Bang must honor the terms of the distribution agreement and cannot do business with distributors outside of the PepsiCo network until October 24, 2023. PepsiCo then moved to dismiss Bang’s lawsuit on December 28, citing the arbitrator’s decision and Bang’s failure to state a claim. However, Bang continued to fight, asking the U.S. District Court judge in Florida to provide injunctive relief “to prevent irreparable harm” to the brand and to allow its case to move forward, regardless of the arbitration. After taking a minority stake in the sports drink brand as part of a 2018 distribution agreement, Coca-Cola began the process to take a controlling interest in BODYARMOR back in February, eventually completing the deal in November in a transaction valued at $5.6 billion, making it Coke’s largest-ever acquisition. Still, as the news broke BODYARMOR co-founder and chairman Mike Repole, named BevNET’s Person of the Year for his efforts in guiding the brand to its massive exit, noted that “Although Coca-Cola buying a controlling interest in BODYARMOR is a distinct possibility, reports that Coca-Cola is purchasing a controlling interest in BODYARMOR are premature. While this is one scenario for BODYARMOR, there are other potential options for the future of the business.”
This year’s most read BevNET story saw the world’s largest beverage manufacturer, Coca-Cola, responding to the year’s biggest news event: the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob seeking to halt Congress’s certification of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. According to data from the Center for Responsible Politics, Coca-Cola was the fifth-largest contributor to federal candidates, parties and outside groups amongst food and beverage companies during the 2020 election cycle. The company contributed a total of $965,104 to candidates or parties, with 68.2% of the total going towards Democrats and 31.7% to Republicans. The company spent an additional $11,014 on outside groups. In a statement shared with media outlets several days after the incident, the company noted “While it was important to us to continue with the tradition of contributing to the President’s inauguration, we have now suspended other political giving in light of the unlawful and violent events in our nation’s capital last week,” adding that “these events will long be remembered and will factor into our future contribution decisions.”

The Top 10 Most Read BevNET Stories of 2021

It would be impossible to count the number of silly re-enactments that exist of certain iconic scenes--you know the ones--from beloved flicks Titanic, Ghost, Say Anything and Love Actually. But there's a new entry in this satirical running gag, which has been popular for years in advertising, and it's even goofier than most, intentionally so....

Poo-Pourri and Super Coffee Create ‘The Most Obvious Collab, Like, Ever’

BevNET Live Winter 2021 is One Week Away; 600+ Registered

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Super Coffee White Chocolate Peppermint

Brand’s marketing campaign mixes in health, positivity
This fall, Super Coffee released its Maple Pumpkin Super Coffee, Super Pods and plant-based Super Creamer as a better-for-you offering in the pumpkin-flavored beverage category. Images courtesy of Super Coffee
October 28, 2021
Every day, more than 150 million Americans fuel their lives with coffee. According to the National Coffee Association, 62% of Americans drink coffee every day, and seven out of 10 drink it every week. But what if there was a healthier caffeinated beverage to start the day with? That’s the question Super Coffee Founder and Chief Operating Officer Jordan DeCicco asked back in his college days. In his quest for a healthier caffeinated beverage, the idea for his better-for-you enhanced coffee brand — Super Coffee — was born. “While I was a freshman studying business at Philadelphia University, after running sprints and lifting weights at 5 a.m. basketball practices, I struggled to find the energy boost for my classes,” he recounts. “I turned to campus vendors for coffee but only found ready-to-drink (RTD) Starbucks Frappuccinos, complete with 31 grams of sugar and 37 grams of carbohydrates, making the option a nonstarter. So, from my dorm room, I took to brewing my own coffee with strength-boosting protein and coconut oil.”
DeCicco’s functional creation soon became a hit with his teammates too, lending the product to more buzz. Two years later, DeCicco won the Thiel Fellowship, a two-year program that offers young people $100,000 to bring their ideas to life instead of spending that time in college. He partnered with his two older brothers, Jim, now Super Coffee CEO, and Jake, now chief revenue officer, to start the brand in 2015. Thus, the trio’s dream of bringing mass-produced positive energy to life from the basement of Jake’s Georgetown dorm was realized. The brand now is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Super Coffee was founded in 2015 out a college dorm room by Jordan DeCicco, far left, chief operating officer, who is joined in the family business by his two brothers, Jake, center, chief revenue officer, and Jim, CEO. Photo by Lesson Medrano
 
The “three Js” made the first Super Coffee sale at the Georgetown Whole Foods Market, and the brand’s distribution has grown to more than 56,000 retail locations nationwide. These include Target, Walmart, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens and 7-Eleven, as well as through coffee subscription services and Amazon.com. The brand is being distributed by St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, a division of AB InBev; in New York by Big Geyser Inc., Maspeth, N.Y.; and in New England by Polar Beverages, Worcester, Mass. In the competitive RTD coffee market, the brand expects to double its all-commodity volume in total U.S. food and multi-outlet channels in 2022. Kicking out sugar
Super Coffee’s core product line is its 12-ounce RTD Super Coffees — the brand’s most popular SKUs. The RTD coffees are fortified with vitamins, antioxidants, proteins, zero-calorie monk fruit sweetener, L-theanine and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil. MCT features a combination of caprylic acid to support gut health and increase the number of ketones the body produces, and capric acid, which helps convert ketones into immediate energy. This combination of ingredients delivers all-day sustained energy with no sugar, jitters or crash, Jordan DeCicco says. Today, the RTD line includes 12-ounce bottles in Mocha, Vanilla, Hazelnut, Caramel and seasonal varieties; 11-ounce cans in Sweet Cream and French Vanilla varieties; Super Cold Brew Black in an 11-ounce cans; and Super Espresso in 6-ounce cans in Triple Shot, Vanilla and Caramel varieties. All of these caffeinated coffees contain 100 calories or fewer; 4 grams of carbohydrates or less; and 1 gram of sugar or less, including no added sugar in any of the products. “Our mission is to mass-produce positive energy,” Jordan DeCicco says. “We see coffee, in general, as a great vehicle to do that while bringing better, different and relevant products to our customers.”
To meet other coffee trends, the brand also offers creamers, pods and grounds. In line with the brand’s commitment to health, the Super Creamers, which are available in Original, Toasted Hazelnut, French Vanilla, Vanilla, Coconut Mocha, Sweet Cream and seasonal varieties, all contain 15 or fewer calories in a tablespoon with no sugar. The Super Coffee grounds in Dark Roast, Mocha, Vanilla and Hazelnut varieties contain 10 or fewer calories in each serving while delivering 200 mg of caffeine. The Dark Roast, Mocha, Vanilla, Hazelnut and seasonal Super Pods contain 10 calories or fewer and do not have any sugar. Many of the products in the portfolio are plant-based as well. The RTD Super Coffee lineup is fortified with vitamins, antioxidants, proteins, L-theanine and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil to deliver all-day sustained energy with no sugar, jitters or crash. Image courtesy of Super Coffee
 
Fittingly for fall, the brand brought back its limited-edition fall seasonal flavor, Maple Pumpkin, in RTD Super Coffee, Super Pods and plant-based Super Creamer formats through December. The products have suggested retail prices of $33.99 for a 12-pack of 12-ounce RTD bottles; $19.99 for a three-pack of 25.4-ounce cartons of creamers; and $9.99 for a 10-count box of pods. “We believe it's important to be better, different and relevant for our customers,” Jordan DeCicco says. “Pumpkin Spice Lattes are the talk of the town for coffee drinkers from August to October, and we are the only brand offering a healthy, delicious and affordable version of this infamous drink in various formats — with zero sugar as opposed to the 50 grams of sugar most fall seasonal drinks pack from big retailers.” 
The company also is planning to release a White Chocolate Peppermint variety for winter and add even more flavors to its lineup in 2022. “We've seen a lot of entrants at the top of the market with new and unique cold brew offerings and movement at the bottom of the market with flavor extensions, pack size adjustments and new concepts from category leaders,” Jordan DeCicco says. “With this in mind, we are always looking to evolve our products and release new and innovative flavors.”
Mixing in health and positivity
In addition to making a difference through its better-for-you products, the brand aims to spread positivity through its marketing campaigns. This year’s “Add Something Positive” campaign, which kicked off in June, aims to bring positive energy and happiness to overworked, stressed-out consumers. “Now more than ever, consumers are in need of positive energy, with the many stressors and desires in their everyday lives,” Jordan DeCicco explains. “We’ve called upon consumers to spread positive energy through ‘Deliberate Acts of Positivity’ with a TikTok challenge kicked off by fitness influencer and partner Demi Bagby.”
In one campaign video, Bagby is seen handing out flowers and compliments, and then she challenges others to add something positive to themselves, someone else or their communities. Other TikTok users responded with videos of themselves giving a large tip to a waitress, filling community fridges, bringing treats to family members, picking up trash and doing other good deeds. Through digital, experiential and social content, the brand has garnered more than 315 million impressions to date. The brand also partnered with innovators, athletes and celebrities — including Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers; former NBA point guard Baron Davis; Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey; and Miss USA 2012 and current fashion influencer, actress and social media personality Olivia Culpo — to help shape a more positive nation by removing sugar from the American diet. In September, the brand appointed two-time Olympic medalist and student-athlete Gabby Thomas as its first health and wellness advocate. In this role, Thomas will travel across the country to educate consumers about the adverse effects of consuming too much sugar, the company says. “The average American drinks nearly four cups of coffee a day with approximately two teaspoons of sugar in each cup,” the brand said in a statement. “Super Coffee’s mission is to be a sugar-free solution that Americans can feel great about.”
The brand has helped remove more than 4 million pounds of sugar from the American diet so far, it says. Part of the reason Thomas was selected as the health and wellness advocate was because of her authentic passion for the brand. She started drinking Super Coffee before her training sessions and then jumped at the opportunity to support the brand in a bigger way. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree in neurobiology and global health. Super Coffee’s marketing efforts aim to inspire people to be the best versions of themselves, Jordan DeCicco explains. Looking into 2022, the brand already is innovating to continue to give consumers a better beverage option too. “We are going to continue focusing on renovating our existing products, focusing on taste, while adding some fun with exciting new flavor launches in 2022,” Jordan DeCicco says. “Stay tuned.”

Super Coffee champions health, kicks out sugar

Super Coffee

NBC Sports

Ancient Nutrition

Rapiscan Systems

Morpho Detection

Tatum

University of Southern California

Under Armour

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The Beverage Market Map: 90+ Companies Changing What (And How) We Drink

Food & Beverage 

We define wellness tech as companies developing technology to help consumers improve their physical, mental, and social well-being. Companies in this collection play across a wide range of categories, including food and beverage, fitness, personal care, and corporate wellness.

Wellness Tech

Series A - III

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Super Coffee aka Kitu Life offers a line of Positive Energy products from Super Coffees and Super Espressos to Super Creamers which utilize healthy fats from MCT Oil and lactose-free protein for sustained energy.

Name	Tyler Ricks
Firm
Work History	A proven senior executive and general manager with a track record of delivering strong results through high performing teams in extremely competitive business segments. A strategic leader with 25 years of general management, marketing, and sales experience in dynamic consumer products organizations, both large and small. Broad functional responsibility in P&L, strategic planning, business development, sales management, brand marketing, innovation and operations. Demonstrated ability to recruit, build and motivate diverse work teams to drive superior growth and personal development.
Other Seats	Super Coffee

Name	Work History	Title	Status
Jordan DeCicco		Founder, President	Current
Jim DeCicco	NBC Sports	Chief Executive Officer	Current
Greg Eyink	Ancient Nutrition, Rapiscan Systems, Morpho Detection, Tatum, and University of Southern California	Chief Financial Officer	Current
Torri Hanna	Under Armour	Chief Marketing Officer	Current
Jake DeCicco		Chief Revenue Officer	Current

Name	Jordan DeCicco	Jim DeCicco	Greg Eyink	Torri Hanna	Jake DeCicco
Work History		NBC Sports	Ancient Nutrition, Rapiscan Systems, Morpho Detection, Tatum, and University of Southern California	Under Armour
Title	Founder, President	Chief Executive Officer	Chief Financial Officer	Chief Marketing Officer	Chief Revenue Officer
Status	Current	Current	Current	Current	Current

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