Infrastructure put into the ground to support a roughly 70% increase in annual US hop supply created a market that's currently oversupplied and will need to correct itself, Brewers Assn economist Bart Watson explained during CollabHour presentation last wk. And while stocks held by growers and dealers continue to expand, brewers seem to be slightly reducing hop usage and using a wider variety of products like oils and powders, he showed. Meanwhile, a "better, not bumper" barley crop helped stabilize pricing, but weather impacts can change the picture quickly. Be prepared for fluctuations, Bart advised.

AB is shutting down Platform's local production facilities and a couple more taprooms amid continued declines, according to reports by Cleveland.com and Cleveland Scene. And co's reducing Platform's production to just 3 core IPA brands, a Platform spokesperson separately shared with CBN.

Cold-brew seems to rapidly be becoming private-label mainstay at retailers, with Wawa latest to throw hat in ring. C-store operator based in Wawa, Penn, is launching Wawa Cold Brew in traditional black and sweet cream versions in all its stores, both in 16-oz and 24-oz sizes. Traditional sku is unsweetened entry made from just coffee slow-steeped in water. "Keeping up with consumer trends and customer demand has been part of Wawa's culture since the very beginning," said Mike Sherlock, chief fresh food & beverage officer. "So, it was only natural for us to make this new, delicious addition to our growing list of hand-crafted specialty beverages that already includes smoothies, frozen cappuccinos, iced and hot lattes, and more" . . . JAB, which has assembled coffee portfolio to rival that of Starbucks, has closed on its acquisition of fast-casual chain Panera Bread. It joins JAB portfolio that includes controlling stakes in Keurig Green Mountain, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), Peet's Coffee & Tea, Caribou Coffee, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and Scandinavia's Espresso House.

Under new prexy/ceo John LeBoutillier, Harvest Hill Beverage continued to shuffle assignments, promoting sales svp David Champlin to prexy of sales, managing staff of 40 that's pitching diversified portfolio that includes Juice Juice, Sunny D, Little Hug, Daily's Cocktails, Veryfine and Nutrament brands. Champlin, who spent dozen years at Nestle Waters USA after previous runs at Mott's and Veryfine, was recognized for his "seasoned, mature leadership" in his 3 years with Harvest Hill, which is funded primarily by PE shop Brynwood Partners. Also getting a bump up is Bean Kingsbury, now evp responsible for Harvest Hill's national accounts. Before joining Greenwich, Conn-based Harvest Hill earlier this year she'd worked at Impact Confections.

Boston-based Bevi, whose "smart" water cooler has been dubbed a "LaCroix killer" by ceo Sean Grundy, has raised $16.5 mil in Series B round led by Trinity Ventures, support a nationwide sales push and to finance countertop version of due this fall. Bevi's coolers are in operation in 20 states, but Grundy told Boston Biz Jnl his goal is to deepen presence outside key markets of Boston, NY and SF. After drawing early investments from Horizons Ventures and Tamarisc, which both participated in Series B, co lured Silicon Valley mainstay Trinity, which had previously invested in Starbucks. To date, co has raised $24.5 million . . . PepsiCo Foodservice has teamed with Hersheypark on "immersive beverage experience" dubbed BBLz that employs Pepsi Spire device to blend unexpected flavors from Pepsi-Cola's soft drinks with Hershey's treats like Reese's Pieces and Twizzlers to create "delicious and whimsical beverage, elevating consumer's experiences." Its first and only permanent location is 2-story, 70-foot-high structure at 121-acre theme park near Hershey's Penn hq.

Juicero, ambitiously funded home-juicing startup that's become symbol of overengineered, overpriced technology run amok, has moved into another wave of retrenchment with plans to cut 25% of headcount and reduce already-slashed pricing of countertop units to $200-300 range. It launched at $699 but quickly moved into price-cutting mode ahead of last year's holiday shopping season amid considerable blowback over that and per-serving price in $5-7 range, no savings over pricy HPP brands available at retail (BBI, Nov 28 and Jan 17). New plan was disclosed by Fortune mag, which obtained letter to troops from ceo Jeff Dunn acknowledging that "the current prices of $399 for the press and $5-7 for produce packs are not a realistic way for us to fulfill our mission at the scale to which we aspire." So plan now is to focus on 2d-generation machine, dubbed v2, which Dunn said told Fortune would run below $300 and which Fortune contact said would be in $200 range. The 25% staff cut will primarily hit sales and marketing ranks as co consolidates payroll around product development and manufacturing. Recall that wave of ridicule hit brand after Bloomberg noted that consumers could save themselves cost of machine just by hand-squeezing the produce packets, at no sacrifice to quality. But even before then, as Fortune had earlier put it, "Some held up the countertop appliance as a symbol of all that was wrong with Silicon Valley: a $699 connected device that solved a problem most people didn't even have the luxury of affording - how to get fresh juice on demand at home." (In past BBI has noted similar conundrum with other new brands - say, cap-dispensed brands like Activate, which informed consumers of a problem they never realized they had with Vitaminwater and demanded $1 a bottle premium to resolve it.) Tho investors include who's who of tech-oriented VCs, also in mix are First Beverage Group and Campbell Soup, from where Juicero ceo Dunn had come after presiding over CPB's troubled Campbell Fresh unit. It's possible questions will come up about Juicero at tomorrow's investor day at Campbell's hq in Camden, NJ.

As anticipated (BBI, Jun 22), plant-based protein player Koia has become latest healthy-bev brand to enter fast-expanding KarpReilly investment portfolio, with Conn-based PE shop leading $7.5 mil round that also included incumbent investor AccelFoods, the food/bev accelerator in NY. AccelFoods had first come aboard this past spring.

Cold-brew seems to rapidly be becoming private-label mainstay at retailers, with Wawa latest to throw hat in ring. C-store operator based in Wawa, Penn, is launching Wawa Cold Brew in traditional black and sweet cream versions in all its stores, both in 16-oz and 24-oz sizes. Traditional sku is unsweetened entry made from just coffee slow-steeped in water. "Keeping up with consumer trends and customer demand has been part of Wawa's culture since the very beginning," said Mike Sherlock, chief fresh food & beverage officer. "So, it was only natural for us to make this new, delicious addition to our growing list of hand-crafted specialty beverages that already includes smoothies, frozen cappuccinos, iced and hot lattes, and more" . . . JAB, which has assembled coffee portfolio to rival that of Starbucks, has closed on its acquisition of fast-casual chain Panera Bread. It joins JAB portfolio that includes controlling stakes in Keurig Green Mountain, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), Peet's Coffee & Tea, Caribou Coffee, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and Scandinavia's Espresso House.