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As a small company growing at 20 percent a year in a narrowly specialized segment of the beverage distribution business, Nampa, Idaho-based Idaho Springs Water succeeds by controlling costs in every corner of its fleet operations, including vehicle acquisition and maintenance, routing optimization, and fuel costs.

Whether its craft beer, imported bottled water, cold-pressed juices or any of the other premium beverages gaining traction, market analysts have highlighted that consumers are willing to pay a premium price if they feel they are getting value-added benefits from a product.

With a few notable exceptions, full-service leasing continues to be much more popular among the very large fleets than it is among the smaller fleets of Beverage Industry readers.

Increased SKU counts, tight warehouse and retail spaces, and delivery personnel who manage heavy cases and kegs are driving the proliferation of new mobile carts and hand trucks designed to improve ergonomics and enable warehouse staff to safely stack, retrieve and deliver products.

Advertising and marketing essentially are story-telling. Short stories by necessity but nonetheless story-telling. One of the first lessons taught about creating a story in many composition and creative writing classes is to show, don’t tell. The audience more likely will  remember a story when they’re shown a picture in their mind’s eye, than if the story merely is told.

It’s often said that change is the only absolute certainty in business. The difference between thriving, surviving or not, comes down to how one responds when those changes arrive, often at the least opportune moment.

When hurricane season arrives, meteorologists and those living along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts rely on sophisticated data tracking and expert monitoring to stay informed and keep safe. To keep pace with an explosive number of SKUs, the beverage industry avoids the “eye of the storm” by equipping field staff with handheld technology and streamlined direct store delivery (DSD) solutions to capture data, track vehicle locations and improve productivity.

For a family-run company that has been in the beverage business for more than a century, Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Atlantic, Iowa, is by no means stuck in the past. Late last year, the company grew from two locations to nine, expanding its territory to cover most of Iowa and portions of adjoining states. As part of the acquisition, Atlantic also has accelerated its shift to end-load equipment, including the recent purchase of 16 new Kenworth T370 tractors and 13 new trailers.