New recipes, more SKUs and packaging advancements have heightened performance demands in beverage plants. Processing automation systems offer beverage manufacturers a technologically advanced way to keep up with ever-increasing production requirements.

Probiotics might once have been considered “least likely to succeed” among functional beverages — after all, most marketers don’t exactly dream of creating campaigns based on bacteria and the inner workings of the gastrointestinal tract.

Beverage flavor trends will blend the old standys with some new favorites this year, according to Beverage Industry’s New Product Development Survey. Beverage Industry asked beverage companies to predict what their top sellers will be this year, and pomegranate came out on top, followed by green tea, lemon, other tea flavors and lime.

The International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT)’s Alicyclobacillus (ACB) Subcommittee is working to identify and validate rapid test methods for the detection and enumeration of spoilage-causing ACB species, a problem that causes medicinal off-flavoring by the production of guaicol, a naturally occurring compound.

In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the approved use of polydextrose as a bulking agent, formulation aid, humectant and texturizer to include all categories of beverages.

Givaudan Flavors North America, Cincinnati, Ohio, has sold its dairy flavors systems business to PCI Co., St. Louis, Mo. The business has been renamed SensoryFlavors Inc.

Beverage categories boom south of the equator The South American countries of Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Colombia consist of important world beverage markets. Brazil’s population consumed more than

International sales and non-carbonated products resulted in positive showings for soft drink companies in 2007.

Many carbonated soft drink companies reported favorable results for 2007, thanks to their non-carbonated acquisitions, non-carbonated launches and CSD sales increases in markets other than North America.

Big city wholesaler keeps its focus smallLike the bustling metropolis it serves, Manhattan Beer Distributors is at once large, extremely diverse and always changing. With more than $570 million in