After flying under the radar following its 2012 launch, Bang Energy sent a sonic boom across the US energy drink market during the past two years, surpassing an 8.0 dollar share in 2019. The brand, owned by Vital Pharmaceuticals (VPX), ignited what is now known as the “performance energy” segment, taking on established players such as Monster Energy by touting better ingredients, low or no sugar, and supplements such as creatine and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Under threat, Monster Beverage launched a counter-attack early last year with Reign Total Body Fuel, using the company’s partnership with Coca-Cola’s US bottling system to shower retail stores with incremental floor displays and c-store cooler placements. Fast forward a year and the threat posed by Bang may have subsided...

Here’s what the entrepreneur Tal Shub imagines: A patron walks into a café holding a stylish, re-usable cup that includes a built-in lid and retractable straw. The consumer inserts their cup upside down into a port that resembles a shallow automobile cup holder. In seconds, the port disinfects the cup, straw and lid, washing away all signs of that morning’s coffee. The person then uses the port’s interface to order an iced green tea lemonade and refills the cup. Data from the port and an RFID chip in the cup are married for the café owner. Such a system will be pilot tested this year in one New York-area community by entrepreneur Tal Shub, co-founder of a startup called Uno (click for video). The company offers a window into a beverage frontier where entrepreneurs are leveraging consumer concern over plastic waste and looking beyond the bottle to create new commercial opportunities. While Uno is pre-revenue and won’t be profitable for five years, Shub estimates, entrepreneurial activity around plastic waste is instructive, as consumers are more willing than ever to embrace new paradigms that could one day challenge existing business models...

Next month, PepsiCo will launch a new sports drink, Gatorade Juiced, aimed at youth athletes and earmarked for the juice aisle. In an exclusive interview, Gatorade Senior Vice President and General Manager Brett O’Brien said the brand is looking to expand its base by creating a sports drink for pre-high school consumers that includes an ingredient profile attractive to their adult caretakers. “It’s bringing younger athletes into the portfolio with a product that their moms, dads and coaches feel great about,” O’Brien said. “We’re not asking them to step up into base Gatorade at an early age. We’re now creating this product specifically for this generation of athletes.” The launch comes as a critical time for the Gatorade brand...

During a Jan. 30 conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss Coca-Cola’s fourth-quarter earnings report, CEO James Quincey was asked about potential impacts from the Coronavirus outbreak in China. And in an interview, he discusses plans for Costa Coffee in the US...

The US sparkling water category grew in 2019, driven by the consumer shift to lower-sugar beverages with simpler ingredient panels. Here's a brand-level look and comprehensive data table detailing the category.

Late last year, Coca-Cola Bottling United opened a new $86 million sales and distribution center in the metro Atlanta town of Union City, just south of Coca-Cola headquarters. The 456,000-sq-ft facility serves 10,000 retail customers in metro Atlanta, covering 2.8 million consumers. As many as 750 employees will manage the warehousing, picking and delivery of 36 million beverage cases per year. Manual order picking has been converted to an automated process built by System Logistics. Marketed as “Vertique,” the system is “an organized, more ergonomic and efficient sequential operation, with less stress on associates and not as labor intensive,” according to Coke United (click HERE for a video of the system). The Union City facility is among a series of investments by Coke United to modernize its distribution system since acquiring new territory, including Coke’s flagship metro Atlanta market in 2017. Last month, Coke United broke ground for construction of a $60 million, 300,000-sq-ft warehouse and sales center in the South Georgia town of Tifton, about an hour’s drive from the Georgia-Florida line. The facility will consolidate inventory from eight older and smaller facilities into a single automated order picking location when it opens by the end of 2021. Birmingham, Alabama-based Coke United, with franchise roots dating back to 1902, covers territory in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The company is Coca-Cola’s fourth largest US franchise bottler (after Coke Consolidated, Reyes Holdings and Arca’s Coke Southwest Beverages). United distributes 11% of Coca-Cola system bottle/can carbonated soft drink volume in US. Last week, Coke United CEO John Sherman and East Region VP Mike Succo joined officials at the new Union City center for a grand opening attended by Coca-Cola North America President Jim Dinkins. BD sat down for an interview with Sherman.

The following has been edited for clarity and space: