![](/content/BI/2007/01/img/industryissue.gif)
News Briefs
Dry Soda Co. has opened a new company store and headquarters in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle. The location will offer tastings of its four “culinary” flavors: Kumquat, Lemongrass, Rhubarb and Lavender, and the company says the space will be used as an event venue, where local chefs can hold tasting and pairing evenings using Dry Sodas.
Ardea Beverage Co.’s Airforce
Nutrisoda nutrient-enhanced sodas will be allowed by the United States
Department of Agriculture to be sold in school foodservice areas during
meal periods. The USDA has said the line’s Focus, Calm, Slender and
Radiant varieties can be included in schools, and the company has submitted
additional flavors for review.
Maui Wowi Hawaiian,
Denver, Colo., has established a relationship with retailer H-E-B to open
outlets inside H-E-B grocery stores in Texas and Mexico. Maui Wowi offers
Hawaiian goods, including fresh fruit smoothies and coffee beverages. The
company opened a location in Katy, Texas, in December, and plans to open
seven additional Maui Wowi locations in the first quarter of this year.
Source Beverages has
added distribution for its Burn Energy Drink in Northern California and the
Caribbean. Energy Source Distributing will handle distribution of the Burn2
energy drink in five counties in Northern California, and the company has
expanded territory for Dry Creek Beverages, Modesto, to include Tuolumne
and Calaveras counties. The company also signed T&L Marketing to export
the energy drink to the Caribbean.
Vitamin Shoppe will begin
carrying Celsius calorie-burning soda in the New York City metro area and
Southern California. “New York and California help set the trends for
the country and the world when it comes to everything from fashion to
health-conscious lifestyles,” said Steve Haley, president of Elite FX Inc., maker of Celsius.
“Vitamin Shoppe is an ideal marketplace for a product like Celsius
because it’s loaded with terrific ingredients like green tea with
EGCG and ginger, and it and has no sugar, no carbs, no high fructose corn
syrup and no chemical preservatives.”
Triple A Products, Boca
Raton, Fla., announced its Vitazest Vitamin & Fruit Enriched Water will
be distributed in Northern New Jersey by Marz
Beverage Distribution Inc., Paterson, N.J. The
company also recently formed a partnership with the Diabetes Research
Institute Foundation that will include donating a portion of Vitazest sales
for support and research. The brand will carry the Institute’s logo
on its packaging.
McDonald’s restaurants in the United Kingdom will begin sourcing its coffee beans from
farms certified by the New York-based Rainforest
Alliance. Beginning this month, all 1,200
McDonald’s restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland will sell
Kenco coffee, a Kraft Foods brand using Rainforest Alliance Certified beans. The move
makes the fast food company the leading retailer of Rainforest Alliance
certified coffee in the United Kingdom.
Market researcher Mintel and Information Resources Inc. have created GNPD IRIS, a product that combines information
from the Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD) with IRI’s retail
scanner data to allow companies to monitor the sales successes and failures
of new products. The companies say it will allow the identification of
emerging trends and aid in product innovation, with the potential to reduce
development costs by as much as 80 percent. “By looking at the sales
of products with similar features and monitoring their performance over
time, GNPD IRIS will help companies establish realistic benchmarks about
the sales potential of their new product ideas before committing to the
next stage of development,” they said in a statement.
Oak Beverages, Blauvelt,
N.Y., will distribute Brazil’s Skol beer brand in its New York
metropolitan territories. The company says it will support the brand
through cultural events such as Skol Rio, Skol Spirit, Skol Stage and the
Bloco Skol carnival.
The Pop Shoppe announced
it is looking for a company to acquire its brands or form a joint venture.
The company says it is positioned to meet the brand’s present needs,
however, expanding bottling, distributing and sales to an international
level can only be accomplished by working directly with a larger beverage
company.
“The response for our products, has been
incredible,” said company President Brian Alger in a statement.
“We believe the best way to meet the growth needs of the company is
by way of being acquired.” Alger acquired and relaunched the soft
drink brand, which was popular during the ‘70s, two years ago.