The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Reed’s feels the fizz of renewal
With new ginger wellness shot bottles hitting shelves next month, the “craft” soda company Reed’s has a new, concentrated burst of innovation as it enters its second full year based in Connecticut, after moving its headquarters to Norwalk from Los Angeles.
It is only the latest jolt for the company under CEO Val Stalowir, beginning with the introduction last year of zerosugar flavors of its Virgil’s root beer and Reed’s ginger beer.
That was followed this year by the Moscow Mule readytodrink cocktail sold in cans, Reed’s first foray into alcohol. Stalowir is now positioning Reed’s for a hempbased beverage, once the Food & Drug Administration clarifies rules for the category. And he suggests additional new product ideas are bubbling in
the background, without divulging details.
Under Chris Reed, who created the company in 1989, Reed’s gained an early cult following in taking on CocaCola, PepsiCo, Cadbury Schweppes and Canada Dry, first with its ginger beer and then with its purchase a decade later of Virgil’s and its line of root beer.
But in attempting to capitalize still further on that early name recognition, Reed attempted to branch his company into other lines of soft drinks, including those bottled for sale under other company’s labels, struggling with production issues and denting profits over time.
With losses growing, Reed’s directors named as board chair John Bello, who gained industry fame building up the South Beach Beverage Co. and selling SoBe to PepsiCo. Bello chose Stalowir as CEO to lead a turnaround of Reed’s.
“Reed’s ... is a company that has had its ups and downs,” stated Mitchell Scott, who tracks Reed’s stock as a portfolio manager with Choice Equities Capital Management and who met with Stalowir this past spring at — of course — The Ginger Man restaurant in Greenwich. “The ... sale of its L.A. plant (finalizes) the move away from the capitalintensive manufacturing operations, and the company will devote the lion’s share of its resources towards marketing and brand building going forward.”
A clean cut
Stalowir has since sold or scotched more than 100 individual products Reed’s had bottled, settling on a core of about 40 Reed’s and Virgil’s varieties before start-
ing a fresh examination of new categories for expansion like the new ginger shots in the offing.
Stalowir, who lives in Easton, decided to bring the headquarters of Reed’s east to Norwalk where SoBe had been based, driven by a desire to capitalize on the cohort of beverage industry experience in the region, with Pepsi, Diageo in Norwalk and Nestle Waters in Stamford among the big brands locally.
“The infrastructure here is very good, in terms of finding people who have beverage industry experience,” Stalowir told Hearst Connecticut Media. “It just made sense to have a clean cut with the old culture, and bring the new culture here. That motivated us, and it has worked out pretty well.”
If Stalowir has Reed’s in fullbore innovation mode, he said it is with a tight focus on the company’s core ginger beer and root beer heritage including the introduction of canned versions that appeal to bigbox warehouse clubs, convenience stores and other mass retail chains.