Beverage Digest hosted its annual Future Smarts conference last December in New York City. The day’s lineup of speakers included leaders from three of the largest US beverage companies — Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper. The executives sat for interviews on stage with Beverage Digest Editor & Publisher Duane Stanford. Here are highlights as the speakers looked ahead to 2025...

Brand Coca-Cola posted a surprising sudden decline at US retail in the four weeks ending Feb. 23, according to multi-channel Circana data published by Evercore ISI. The drop coincides with social media calls for a boycott of the brand among Hispanic consumers. The boycott appears to have...

Concentrate list pricing for flagship Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and other carbonated soft drinks produced by US Coke bottlers rose...

A report last week by antitrust litigators at global law firm O’Melveny argued that the US FTC’s anti-competition case filed last month against PepsiCo (and in December against Southern Glazer’s) may not be as simple as a...

Retailers Amazon, Walmart, Costco Rose as Shoppers Sought Value, Online Convenience

Shares of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper all underperformed the S&P 500 Index and the Consumer Staples Index in 2024. As shown in the table below, Coca-Cola was the only one of the three companies to post a gain. Top-3 energy drink makers...

Turn over a can or bottle of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar in the US and you’ll find a new ingredient — stevia. The natural sweetener is now part of a formula that already included aspartame and acesulfame potassium. The new...

Consumers cut back on ready-to-drink coffee at US retail during the first nine months of this year, according to BD data. The category, led by a joint venture between PepsiCo and Starbucks, declined by volume (-2.6%) and dollars (-3.2%), as shown in the Coffee Green Sheet with this story. Pricing for the category was down slightly by -0.6%. PepsiCo’s Starbucks portfolio posted a -9.1% volume sales decline as dollar sales dropped -6.3% as pricing rose +2.7%. Frappuccino, which accounted for more than a ...