Roasting Plant Coffee, a chain that yokes high quality to absorbing in-store theater via its Javabot system, has pulled in $10 mil in expansion capital. NY-based co launched by former Starbucks exec Mike Caswell was vague on participants in what it said was oversubscribed round, saying 40% came from existing shareholders like former Conforama Suisse owner Dan Mamane and 60% from family offices, meaning no orthodox institutional money was involved. The money will be deployed to continue value-engineering Javabot system, which roasts beans in microbatches in stores, then transports them to brewing stations via prominent pneumatic tube system, and to add stores.

He might only have been on the job a few months as Howard Schultz's successor at Starbucks, but CEO Laxman Narasimhan apparently already is fighting to protect his job amid period of commercial stress at gigaroaster. CNBC reported that activist investor Elliott Management has proffered a settlement with SBUX that would expand the board and make governance improvements while allowing Narasimhan to stay in place, as Reuters reported this morning. The proposal, made before Elliott's stake in roaster became public, did not get immediate response from either party. On Tues afternoon earnings call, Laxman had simply acknowledged that Elliott is a shareholder with whom he's engaged in "constructive" discussions . . . Former Essentia Water #2 exec Neil Kimberley, who's been advising Electrolit on its commercialization strategy for past year, has taken permanent role as chief commercial officer at Keurig Dr Pepper-aligned brand. Kimberley is familiar with network thru his long tenure on KDP-acquired Snapple brand.

Gut pop brand Olipop is workin' back-to-school college crowd with sweepstakes that teases them about forthcoming new flavor with caffeine part of the premise for first time. Effort picked up by USA Today offers social media followers a blurred glimpse of greenish can and description, "With a fusion of lemon, lime, and orange juices creating an energizing blast of flavor, this drink will gear you up for your next adventure." Energizing modifier is reference to 60 mg of green tea caffeine that item will contain - first time it's proactively highlighting caffeine content in marketing, tho prior entries like Cola, Cherry Cola and Doctor Goodwin (named for cofounder/formulator Ben Goodwin) have contained it, as growth/partnerships dir Steve Vigilante clarified to us. Sweeps will give winners 8 12-unit cases, 25K cans all told, to get brand seeded on campuses. Effort started today with winners to be notified each day starting tomorrow thru Aug 16. Launch continues blitz that's seen nearly 20 flavors over past 6 years.

A Tetra Pak plant operated by Flow Beverage in Ontario that not long ago was on sales block is proving to be a cash cow thanks to outsize success of a core client, BeatBox Beverages. Today Flow Bev said it's amended terms of contract announced last Nov to extend it by a year, to 6 years, and to up minimum total revenue to $213 mil from $115 mil, the take-or-pay amount set in original 5-yr term. Flow, which had said it was considering expansion of plant in Aurora, now will proceed to add 2 lines to existing 4 lines, one of which just went live. BeatBox will assist in funding expansion via commitment to purchase from Flow no later than Oct 31 a US$2 mil convertible note at 10% rate, secured by Flow assets. It continues turnabout from period last year when FLOW sold Tetra Pak plant in Verona, Va, and was considering sale of Ontario unit too in order to concentrate on its own carton waters and to smooth out revenue fluctuations inherent in copacking biz. Any sale would have contained commitment to continue producing Flow in Aurora. The BeatBox alliance both brought substantial revenue stream and opened door for Aurora plant to move into alc bev segment.

This week in 2001, after Maris Distrib's big court win against AB, INSIGHTS shared some witness testimony from lengthy trial. As a witness for AB, Peter Busch (half brother of August III) shared his no fuss negotiating style. Peter, owner of Southern Eagle said he paid $1.7 mil asking price for Belle Grade territory in 1997 (340K cases). He never haggled over price with Bernie Little Sr, who called and asked if he was interested. Peter said he was willing to do deal before even knowing price because it was "perfect opportunity" since he "needed the volume." Acknowledged too that his original deal to buy Southern Eagle was initiated for him by August III. "I did not meet with the owners," said Peter. Maris atty wondered aloud, "Do most people buy two distributors with no negotiations?" Southern Eagle bought 3.5 mil cases from Brown Dist in West Palm Beach in 2021, for a much higher price and after plenty of negotiations.

Following departure of ceo Dave Burwick, Boston Beer filled his vacant board seat and added a new seat, putting two more high-powered execs from well-known cos into key advisory roles at a critical juncture for the #5 US beer supplier. First up, taking Dave's seat, is Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter as well as longer-form publishing platform Medium and investment firm Future Positive. Boston also brought on Joe Jordan, current US and global services prexy for Domino's, a co he's been with for over a decade, including as intl exec veep and cmo. Before that, Joe spent 6 yrs at PepsiCo North America, including as mktg sr director. The pair join the board as Boston's new ceo Michael Spillane aims to help right the ship.

Molson Coors took the top spot in Tamarron Consulting's 2024 Brewer Partnership Compass survey tracking distrib/brewer relationships. But the 47-question survey also showed an "industry-wide performance improvement" despite lackluster trends for the beer industry at large. Tamarron received responses from 171 distribs across the US ranking supplier performance on 1-5 scale for the top-8 brewers. Survey was conducted from early Apr thru mid-May 2023, lapping beginnings of Bud Light backlash. (Separate supply chain survey results published in early June.)

Monthly Beer Purchaser's Index from NBWA ticked up another notch in July and still solidly expanding, org reported this afternoon. At a reading of 59, BPI shows a greater portion of wholesalers ordered more in July than they did yr ago. That's "5th straight month of expansion" in this metric, NBWA pointed out, while at-risk inventory still below 50 for the 9th month in a row at 44.

Ball Corp reported solid Q2 earnings this morn, with global beverage can shipments +2.8% and volume up 1.1% in North and Central America. But chairman and ceo Dan Fisher continued bangin' the drum on imminent price promos for premium light beer, expecting increased activity to help spur US volume growth.