With consumer confidence trending lower, as measured by both the Conference Board and the University of Michigan, concerns over the affordability of ready-to-drink beverages is intensifying. Today’s newsletter captures the tension between consumers protecting their budgets and beverage companies protecting their margins.

The lead story on page 3 checks in with Coke, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper bottlers to see how they are coping with rising commodity prices, softening pricing growth, and weakening volume performance. BD informally surveyed bottlers in May. Almost two months later, how are bottlers faring and feeling? The short answer: ...

We just announced our first confirmed speaker for this year’s Future Smarts conference, and we’re announcing a second speaker tomorrow. Both will bring the heat on Dec. 14 in New York.

The first is Coca-Cola’s Nancy Quan. In her role as global technical, innovation and supply chain chief, Nancy influences just about every corner of the Coke system. She and her vast team lead innovation across the value chain, from product and packaging to distribution and retail.

At Future Smarts, Nancy will discuss this work at a time when fragmentation and instability add new challenges that effective companies will turn into competitive advantages. What is the future of ready-to-drink packaging? How will fountain beverage equipment evolve? What ingredients and product attributes will consumers demand? What new ways will Coke get products to market, and how will the company’s supply chain remain both efficient and flexible? We’ll explore issues like these, and more, with Nancy.

Tomorrow’s speaker announcement, which you get to read about here first,...

Two products landed on my desk recently that share an unlikely common thread. Both are reimagining something ordinary as something premium. One capitalizes on purple corn. The other wants to elevate beverage ice to an art form.

Let's start with the ice. Founded in 2018 by three former Lagunitas Brewing executives, Abstract Ice has differentiated itself in the craft ice space with suspended flowers, etched cubes, spheres, and most recently soccer balls timed for the World Cup. The company says its ice is "crystal clear, slow-melting and made from deliciously pure water." The ice is also a canvas. Etchings can be custom designed for Abstract Ice's target hospitality and upscale retail customers with anything from a company logo to a drawing or monogram.

Cocktail culture has spurred companies like Fever-Tree to create craft mixers with a promise that they won't contaminate fine spirits with cheap ingredients. The proposition changed the mixer category entirely and opened the door to a new kind of consumer who thinks carefully about every element in the glass. Companies like Abstract Ice are making the same argument for the frozen rock that goes in that Old Fashioned. If the bourbon is craft and the mixer is craft, why not the ice?

Another start-up that caught my attention markets a drink called Purple Drop. The plant-based drink is rooted in chicha morada, a traditional Peruvian beverage made from purple corn simmered with pineapple and cinnamon and finished with lime. Despite centuries of cultural history, the drink...