We knew early on that Tio Gazpacho’s Rosado variety, a watermelon-based gazpacho, would be in the running for BevNET’s Best of 2016 awards; it’s an outstanding product inside and out. Made with watermelon, red pepper, cucumber, tomato, lemon, sea salt, cilantro, olive oil, white wine vinegar, black pepper, and cayenne – is your mouth watering yet? – the gazpacho is a beautiful blend of sweet, savory, and spicy flavors. It’s a standout product for the nascent drinkable soup category and showcases the creative and culinary prowess of its pioneering brand, Tio Gazpacho.
REBBL this year continued to take its brand to higher levels of flavor and polish with the addition couple of proteininfused varieties to its Elixirs line. Formulated with base of coconut milk and 16g of vegan protein derived from pea, sunflower, and pumpkin sources, the products can definitely hold their own with many soy or whey protein beverages. It’s a well-executed play for REBBL as it evolves beyond the natural channel and showcases the brand’s ability to create timely and flavorful offerings.
LIVE has done an excellent job of creating one of the more market-ready vinegar-based offerings to date. Each of the line’s four flavor varieties is made with apple cider and coconut vinegars, USDA Organic certified and low-calorie and contain no added sugar. LIVE has done a really nice job working with stevia as a way to keep the sugar count down, and the often divisive ingredient is nearly undetectable to taste. While it’s hard to predict the potential of drinking vinegars, LIVE’s offering will play along nicely tag along with its kombucha products and can definitely hold their own satisfying the consumer’s palate.
From a taste and quality perspective, Revive is one of the few brands that we consider to be at the top of the kombucha category. And with the launch of an 11 oz. bottle size, Revive created an offering that will allow the brand to scale on a national level. It’s a nice portion size, particularly for consumers who are new to kombucha. Moreover, Revive has done a superb job of designing labels that are colorful and attractive, rounding out a package that feels very inviting.
Amid a staggering number of new cold brew coffee products coming to market, Califia Farms’ Nitro Cold Brew stood out in 2016. A line of three dairy-free offerings, the coffees are formulated with almond milk and macadamia milk, an innovative turn for nitro coffees. The nitro enhancement really seems to work well with nut milk, perhaps even better than dairy-based nitro products. Product packaging is also impressive: the white 10.5 oz. aluminum bottles present a truly disruptive look on shelf.
Ripple provided a shot in arm for the dairy-alternative category with the introduction of an innovative line of plant-based, low-sugar milks that emulate the creaminess and viscosity of real dairy milk. From our perspective, the beverages represent the kind of disruptive innovation that will have a strong and lasting impact in how mainstream consumers think about dairy alternatives. We’re not alone: Target stocks Ripple nationally, and the brand has pulled in more than $40 million in investment in the past 12 months.
Koia was one of the most impressive brand launches of 2016. Koia’s line of plant-based protein drinks, formulated with almond milk, a proprietary protein blend – brown rice protein, pea protein, and hemp protein – and sweetened with sugar and monk fruit extract, are rich, flavorful, low-calorie and very much on-trend. Koia backs up the formulation with a label design that’s just as impressive. A very strong start with its initial offering, we expect big things from Koia in the years to come. 41