Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. (IRI) announced last year’s most successful consumer packaged goods (CPG) launches in its 2017 New Product Pacesetters report, the CPG industry-recognized benchmark analysis of exceptional first-year new product sales success.

As part of the North America Coffee Partnership between Seattle-based Starbucks Coffee Co. and Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo Inc., Starbucks is bringing consumers a new ready-to-drink Starbucks Iced Latte, available in Salted Caramel Mocha for a limited time, the company says. 

In the publication’s Readers’ Choice New Product of the Month poll for January, Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffees took the No. 1 spot by garnering 38 percent of the vote. 

Although 2017 might be in full swing, there still is one more recognition for 2016: Beverage Industry’s Readers’ Choice New Product of the Year. Featuring the monthly winners of the magazine’s New Product of the Month poll, the readers were eager to select which one would emerge as the 2016 winner.

Summer is in full swing and consumers are looking to cool off with some refreshing beverages. However, they still need that morning pick-me-up. To satisfy both need states, iced coffee releases continue to light up the shelves, and the readers of Beverage Industry agree.

The Caribou Coffee Co. recently introduced new ready-to-drink (RTD) Caribou Premium Iced Coffee to its portfolio of coffee beverages. 

I recently returned from a vacation in Southern California, where I mixed in some work between Disneyland, whale watching and playing in the Pacific Ocean. After watching my 19-year-old son and the rest of Chicago Danube Swabians — a German folk-dancing group — participate in a Landerstrachtenfest in Anaheim, we got the chance to explore California and sample a few beverages, too.

Convenience stores sit in a unique niche where they are presented with consumers and behaviors not found in any other food or beverage retail sector. The biggest challenge, yet opportunity, is that 84 percent of items purchased at convenience stores are consumed within the hour of purchase, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), Alexandria, Va.

For many Americans, the morning doesn’t start until their first sip of coffee. According to experts, the coffee category faces only a few unique trends impacting it.