face="Times New Roman"> Bunch of Fancy Food exhibitors made aggressive moves into adjacent realms, with Owl's Brew launching canned radler line, Joia adding canned vodka cocktails and kid-targeted Green Mustache turning many of its growth hopes to snack line. Quick rundown:

Owl's Brew Blends Beer, Tea for Radlers NY-based Owl's Brew, of course, is line of tea-based cocktail mixers packed in matte-black bottles whose subtle formulations work with range of alc bevs. Now it's offering first RTD entry: trio of canned beer-and-tea combos called radlers. Line launches in mid-Jul in Wicked Watermelon and The Blondie flavors, both based on wheat beers, joined in Sep by Jam Shandy. It's offered in 6-packs of 12-oz cans at $11.99, starting in NY and NJ via distributors who're still being selected. Co has recruited 10-year Anheuser-Busch vet John Nicholas to help in new terrain of selling beer. The radlers, running 3.5-3.8% ABV, include Wicked Watermelon that's created from wheat beer blended with white tea, watermelon and pomegranate; Blondie that blends wheat beer with English breakfast tea and lemon peel, as well as Jam Shandy blending amber ale with Darjeeling tea, hibiscus and strawberry. It's being produced by Stevens Point in Wis. Why take risk of distorting DSD-free model that's worked so well? "Nobody was doing this," replied cofounder Maria Littlefield. At trade shows, "we were making beer cocktails under the table while we were pouring everyone else bourbon."

On core line Littlefield and her partner Jennie Ripps have added 16-oz matte-black bottle at $8.99-9.99 to existing 8-oz ($5.99-8.99) and 32-oz ($12.99-15.99) sizes. Also entering mix is Holiday Cocktail Kit, offering seasonal flourish to existing kit with special flavors Grapefruit Collins, Mulling Spices and Salted Caramel Toddy.

Joia Goes with Vodka Base for Canned Cocktail Line Are RTD cocktail drinkers ready for an entry that's not malt-based? Minneapolis-based marketer of Joia craft sodas intends to find out, with release of canned Joia Spirit Craft Cocktails line that's unusually made from real vodka. New line from Boundary Water Brands is packed in 12-oz slim cans with white background and debuts in Sparkling Greyhound (with grapefruit, chamomile and cardamom), Sparkling Moscow Mule (crisp ginger, apricot, lime) and Sparkling Cosmopolitan (redirecting cranberry, pear and lime combo that was originally intended to be holiday season entry in core soda line). It will go out at $3.99-4.99 per can or $13.99 per 4-pack. It was formulated by mixologist Dan Oskey. Among key selling points: at 110-125 calories per 6-oz serving, it contains even fewer calories than Skinny Girl cocktails (142 calories per 6 oz), a glass of wine (150 per 6 oz) or Mike's Hard Lemonade (220 per 11 oz) while eschewing ingredients like HFCS.

Founders Carleton Johnson and Steven Walker said items are formulated with vodka that they produce from neutral grain spirits. While that confers complications in retail availability, taxation and distribution, Steven said co simply was unable to attain flavor it wanted in experiments with malt-based core ingredient. Line has been picked up by spirits house Johnson Bros in both Minn and Nev, with MGM Grand picking up line for its poolside venues. They said they're also close to assigning brand to Ill distributor. Tho core soda items often themselves are used as mixers, vodka base of cocktails required that co create new distribution tier since core houses on sodas, like A-B house Capital in Minn or Harney & Son in NY, don't have spirits licenses. Recall that wine cooler category originally launched with wine-based items before producers opted for cost, distribution and other advantages of malt-based products.

Green Mustache Adds Kale Snacks while Tilting Bevs to HPP As any marketer targeting kids segment can tell you, it's tough segment to break thru given moms' penchant for lower-priced, highly sweetened items that their kids will most readily accept. So Green Mustache line of kid-targeted "super smoothies" containing 2 cups of kale and spinach in each 10-oz bottle, has decided it would be wise to diversify into healthy snacks, too. At Fancy Food, founder VanTrang Manges showcased Mustache Munchies, bagged moustache-shaped Goldfish-like snacks made from kale and chia. Tho snack line retains Green Mustache moniker, branding is not at all kid-focused, as with brightly colored bottles with cartoon animals on label. Bev line may yet go in that direction, tho for now VanTrang is sticking with look that may be youthful but not to extent grownups won't be seen with it. "Everyman's green drink," she likes to style it. (Recall that cold-pressed juice player Daily Greens has similarly wrestled with issue, launching 8-oz line dubbed Half Pint that, despite moniker, keeps graphics sophisticated enough so that entry can serve as lower-price, lower-calorie offering for adults, too.) Green Mustache bev line recently swapped short square bottle for straightwall round bottle familiar to cold-pressed juice buyers, while moving to HPP process. Tho new bottle is same 10 oz as former one, it looks bigger on shelf. It goes out at $4.99.  

CSD volume rebounded from 4% decline for 12 wks to 0.7% gain last 4 wks thru Jun 18 in Nielsen all-channel data reported by Morgan Stanley's Dara Mohsenian. "Growth in certain categories may have been helped by holiday timing," as last 4 wks include Fri and Sat of Memorial Day weekend, noted Dara. Pricing also helped swing CSDs to increase as avg prices eased to just 0.2% increase compared to +2.2% for 12 wks. Regular CSDs swung to 2.2% volume gain last 4 wks while decline of diet brands slowed to -3.1% vs -8% for 12 wks. Coca-Cola CSD volume increased 2.7% last 4 wks in all-channel (vs -3.3% for 12 wks) with boost from 1% avg price drop. PepsiCo volume was flat last 4 wks compared to near 6% drop for 12 wks. PEP avg prices were basically flat (-0.1%) for 4 wks vs +2.5% for 12 wks. Dr Pepper Snapple CSDs were up 1.1% on avg 0.3% price increase last 4 wks, down from near 2% price increases for 12 wks. Pricing remained steady for private-label brands at +2.4%, but volume continued to struggle, off 6.8% last 4 wks. That matched 52-wk decline for private-label CSDs.

Energy Gains on Flat Prices; Red Bull Still Down Energy drink volume was up 3.5% last 4 wks on slight (-0.1%) avg price drop in all-channel last 4 wks. That's up from 2.8% volume gain for 12 wks while prices were unchanged. Red Bull volume fell 2.4% (vs 3% drop for 12 wks) on avg 0.6% price drop last 4 wks. Monster Energy outperformed with 4.1% volume gain on avg 2.1% price increase last 4 wks. For 52 wks, Monster volume was up 5.7% vs 2.4% gain for Red Bull. Rockstar continued to post double-digit gains, up 10.2% last 4 wks on small (+0.2%) price increase. PepsiCo (Amp) slowed to 0.3% volume gain for 4 wks down from +2.6% for 12 wks and +6.6% for 52 wks. Trends slowed considerably even with softer pricing (-1.2%) last 4 wks. ; (Keep in mind, tho, that most of blue system also distributes surging Rockstar.) Private-label brands dropped from 8% gain for 12 wks to 1.5% decline as avg prices went from near flat to up 8.5% last 4 wks.

Sports Drinks Bounce Back Sports drink volume increased 3.9% last 4 weeks vs flat performance for 12 wks in all-channel. Category pricing trend was virtually unchanged at +1.3% last 4 wks. PEP (Gatorade) volume improved to +3.3% (vs -0.8% for 12 wks) last 4 wks on avg 0.6% price increase. KO (Powerade) picked up 3.6% (up from +0.3% for 12 wks) on small (-0.6%) price drop last 4 wks. Private-label brands posted solid volume (+4.8%) and price gains (+8%) last 4 wks.

High Tide for Waters Bottled water volume gain reached 9.8% last 4 wks, up from 6.7% gain for 12 wks, while avg pricing was unchanged at -1.8%. Nestle volume up 6.9% last 4 wks, nearly double its 12-wk gain pace. Avg prices have been down in 3% range last 4 and 12 wks. KO and PEP each outperformed. KO water volume up 9.9% (vs +5.3% last 12 wks) on avg 2.4% price drop last 4 wks. PEP waters gained 10.7% (up from +7.5% for 12 wks) with boost from 3.5% price decline. Private-label waters also up double-digits (+11.6%) on 3% price drop.