We haven't seen any projections that flavored sparkling water could reach 20% of total bev biz, but Goldman Sachs' Bonnie Herzog doesn't see that as unrealistic on alcoholic side. She's raised her estimates on hard seltzer category while simultaneously upgrading Boston Beer stock to "buy" rating on strength of its Truly entry, as our sibling letter Insights Express reported. Hard seltzers could reach $20 bil of retail sales by 2025, "a significant step up from ~$3.5B today and reflecting a 23% CAGR (compound annual growth rate)," she wrote. So hard seltzer share would more than double to 20 share of beer vs ~8% currently, jumping from ~200 mil cases in 2020 to ~570 mil cases in 2025. Similar to other analyst views, Bonnie expects growth will continue to be driven by top brands, White Claw and Truly, maintaining ~80 share of segment. And "international expansion could be a huge opportunity long term," she added, tho that's still in "nascent" stages. Riding its momentum, Boston Beer has installed new canning line at Memphis-based City Brewing in May that essentially doubled Truly's capacity and has okayed 2 more canning lines at Ohio (this fall) and Penn (next spring), even as leader White Claw's first new production brewery of several in planning is getting ready to come on line.

Davids Tea is taking bump in ecomm and grocery sales as vindication of plans to downsize North American store footprint as it struggles for financial stability. But it will need flexibility from landlords to do so, and founder/chmn Herschel Segal, who's serving as interim ceo, warned yesterday that if that isn't forthcoming, "we may need to pursue a formal restructuring in order to do so."

Criticized for dawdling too long before postponing Natural Products Expo West in Mar, New Hope Network has moved quickly to make reluctant decision to cancel Expo East, which had been scheduled for Sep 24-26 at Philadelphia Convention Center. "We are making this decision now—more than 3 months before the event—because we want to do what's best for you," per New Hope post on ExpoEast.com website. "We've learned from surveys and conversations that many community members, including retail buyers, are not confident they will feel safe traveling to or attending a large event in September. A potential lack of buyer participation, along with the show changes we would need to make to ensure the health & safety of the Expo East community, would have prevented us from delivering the quality experience and return on investment our exhibitors, sponsors and the broader community deserve and that we strive to provide." Move immediately drew a "Bravo" from VMG partner Wayne Wu, who'd been among those who were most outspoken in calling for New Hope to move with alacrity to cancel Expo West once buyers and major exhibitors retreated and dangers of virus became more apparent.

Dunkin' appears to have filled in another menu gap in rivalry with Starbucks with launch of energizing green-tea-based Dunkin' Refreshers that offer alternative to SBUX' own fruity Refresher offerings. Launching tomorrow with $2 deal thru Jul 28, Dunkin' Refreshers are debuting in Strawberry Dragonfruit and Peach Passion Fruit flavors that contain dose of B-vitamins and come in under 200 calories. A small cup contains about 66 mg of caffeine, a rep said, about one-third the level of small Dunkin' iced coffee but 50% more than small iced tea. The $2 deal, for medium-size drink, will be available all day at participating stores. The Dunkin' line seems to straddle Starbucks' Refreshers line, which includes flavors like Dragon and Mango Dragonfruit and includes diced dragonfruit pieces and base of green coffee flavor, and its Iced Green Tea line. At both chains, cold bevs have become increasingly important part of mix, particularly in afternoons.

Recent years have brought an onslaught of in-your-face branding efforts to packaged water category, with entrepreneurs hoping a bit of attitude can help their cause in crowded coolers. After earlier try with kids-oriented Wat-aah! brand that ultimately didn't pan out, we've lately seen likes of Liquid Death and Ugly. Now Angry Seltzer has arrived, the brainchild of self-avowed "seltzerholic" from Miami Beach named Howard Weiss and a childhood friend who thought the flavored-seltzer segment could use an entry with "strong bite and delicious refreshing flavors," as Weiss put it in presentation to BevNet New Bev Showdown judges last week. So the brand is calibrated to offer aggressive carbonation in effort to reach those who "who love the bite of soda but don't want the calories." He views these underserved consumers as being comprised mainly of millennials and other young adults who might "appreciate a witty brand," as he told judges. In keeping with aggressive brand name, the flavors go out alliteratively as Belligerent Black Cherry, Cranky Coconut, Grumpy Grapefruit, Litigious Lime (named in honor of "your future ex-wife") - even Obscene Orange. You get the point. Weiss stressed that exacting flavor development process with unidentified lab in Laguna Beach, Calif, was intended to yield range that included "no Lysol lime or cough medicine cherry." He believes there's "misconception that wine lovers are the only beverage connoisseurs, but there's an entire subculture of sparkling water junkies" who might be willing to work a more distinctive offering into their repertoire.

Iris Nova, which is deploying the messaging-based ecomm platform devised for its Dirty Lemon brand behind outside brands, too, has picked up UK canned sparkler Dash Water, which uses misfit fruits for flavors, JustDrinks.com reported. The line, which combines just sparkling water and "wonky" fruits, is out in Cucumbers, Raspberries, Blackcurrants, Peaches and Lemons flavors. Iris Nova, which is minority-held by Coca-Cola, will roll out the brand in US later this month, joining portfolio of outside partners that includes likes of Halo sports drinks and Sanzo Asian-style sparklers. Dash already is available in 12 global markets, including at retail in Belgium and Netherlands, e-letter reported. Premise is to attack food waste issue - to tune of 450K blackcurrants that would otherwise have gone to waste, per video posted on Dash-Water.com website.

As we’ve often noted in recent weeks, exit of Bang Energy from beer houses to Pepsi system has prompted a scramble by other performance-energy brands to find a berth in the jilted houses, in knowledge those distribs helped build a half-bil-dollar brand and are itchin’ to build the next one, partly in retribution to Bang marketer VPX Sports.  One that’s been sparking fair amount of interest, judging by inquiries we’ve been getting, has been Florida-based Raze Energy.  As with rivals like C4 and Bang itself, Raze has emerged from established nutritional supplement entrepreneur, in this case Chris Wagner, who operates cluster of businesses under Repp Sports banner, including fitness supplement maker Nutrakey and functional snack maker GPop Foods.  In past month it’s recruited 11-year VPX Sports vet Joe Huntowski as vp of beverage to manage Raze commercialization strategy, even as brand embarks on free-except-shipping deal to entice new consumers into trying out brand, at time pandemic has placed more conventional activities like in-store sampling on hold.  Last flavor in portfolio of 10, Baja Lime, was crowd-sourced with aid of committed Raze users who commented on flavor, name and design, and has quickly soared to #1 in mix.  (Another top seller, Halloween-themed Voodoo, also was crowd-sourced.)

The decade-old Repp Sports is based in Longwood, Fla, where it self-manufactures its supplements and, when line time for cans proved hard to come by, has moved to self-producing Raze line too, with rapid capacity expansion currently under way.  Brand was created 2 years ago at suggestion of key gym-channel distributor seeking to broaden its performance-energy range beyond Bang with another entry that offered something more than a knockoff.  Repp Sports team responded with 16-oz canned Raze line that retains the 300 mg caffeine hit identified with fitness-energy segment, eschews the creatine and Co-Q10 but does contain recovery-enhancing branch-chain amino acids (BCAAs).  It offers several key differentiators.  For one, it relies on 2 caffeine sources to offer phased lift thanks to time-release component.  To offset dehydrating properties of the caffeine, line contains potassium electrolyte.  And it contains the focus-enhancing nootropic ingredient Alpha GPC.  It’s sweetened with blend of sucralose and ace-K, coming in at zero sugar, zero calories.  We’ve only stumbled across Orange Guava flavor so far, but distribs we’ve talked to consistently describe flavor profiles as excellent, at Bang level or better.

Raze started by seeding endemic channels like GNC, Vitamin Shoppe, Gold’s Gym, Planet Fitness and Crunch.  More recently it’s been building out retail footprint, starting with banners like HEB, Hy-Vee and Giant Eagle as well as some 7-Eleven franchise owners in Southern Calif, said Huntowski, who’s based in Chicago and has also worked at Xyience and Clean Cause energy plays.  Now he’s bringing aboard first DSD partners, such ex-Bang houses as Pure and Terborg in Indiana and Folsom in Missouri.  Lots more announcements are anticipated in coming weeks, he promised.  He’s also in hunt for key-acct execs on sales side with lure of stable co with single owner, Wagner, and committed long-term staff, including 8-year vet Lex Kovacs as vp sales for all the brands.  Info at ReppSports.com.

With its pub closed since Mar, Brattleboro, Vt-based Whetstone Brewery had a problem: it was sitting on too many tanks of its mainstay Whetstoner Ale, which was not going to improve with age. So last week its owners made an anxious phone call to an earlier collaboration partner: GuS artisanal soda. Would GuS (the initials stand for Grown Up Soda) be willing to run up the ingredients of its Ruby Grapefruit soda for a reprise of the award-winning Ruby on Rails Ruby Red Grapefruit Radler the companies had collaborated on back in 2015? The answer was an enthusiastic yes, GuS founder/ceo Steve Hersh recalled yesterday. Problem was that GuS is based in NYC and brewery is in Vt. Since time was of the essence, that state's 14-day quarantine requirement was a problem. So Hersh stayed in a hotel on Massachusetts side of border and the partners considered meeting at state line for handoff of pails of ingredients under cover of darkness before Hersh decided to just brazen it out and drive into Brat