BeatBox founders Aimy Steadman, Justin Fenchel and Brad Schultz’s ask to wholesalers is to help them build a “flavor wall” at retailers across the country.
They described the flavor wall – two to three shelves, featuring assorted flavors of the party punch – during BeatBox’s first large-scale distributor meeting in Houston last week.
“It’s a destination in the store where consumers know they can find the brand that they love,” Schultz explained. “And there’s going to be an assortment of flavors, all ranges of flavor intensity, of fruity, of sweet.”
The flavor wall is already happening. Schultz shared a photo taken from a Walmart in Indiana where the cooler and shelves were stocked with several different BeatBox flavors.
“Our goal here is to figure out, how do we scale this? How do we make this the standard?” he continued.
In a later presentation, BeatBox EVP of sales Phil Jamison said the company and its distributor partners have built 653 flavor walls over a two-week period.
“It’s happening and it’s working, and we’re earning our fair share, but it’s thinking differently,” Jamison said. “There’s no reason we should have less than seven SKUs in a store.”
Distributors who are placing six or more different flavors at off-premise retailers are seeing six times the sales, Jamison added. He continued that the flavor wall approach appeals to consumers in their 20s who grew up on energy drinks with a multitude of flavors available.
“The energy drink has literally taught these younger consumers, as they come into minimum drinking age, to shop flavor,” he said.
BeatBox SVP of marketing Zech Francis echoed those comments during a separate presentation.
“They [younger consumers] literally will go in our store locator, they’ll pick a store in the same block that has seven SKUs of BeatBox versus two SKUs of BeatBox, and they’ll go to that store and buy and give their business to that store just because they have more flavor options and variety,” he said.
Fenchel encouraged distributors to not view BeatBox as a beer.
“We’re not a beer where you can put two flavors and be done,” he said. “We are more like an energy drink company or a Gatorade lineup where you need full flavors, you need full shelves. Think of it differently.”
Fenchel acknowledged that competition is growing from major wine and spirits producers for space within the fifth cooler door that was once dedicated to cold wine that is now filled with BeatBox and BuzzBallz.
“We should never see a competitive product in a store without us there,” Fenchel said. “They’re all second to market. We are the first. We are the leader, and we deserve to be in those stores.”
BeatBox By The Numbers
BeatBox now accounts for 2% of the $11 billion beyond beer category. The company is growing at an average of triple-digits in off-premise retailers this year, and it’s “not slowing down,” Fenchel said.
BeatBox has 107,000 accounts buying every 90 days, and half of those accounts are carrying fewer than four flavors, Fenchel continued. Adding additional flavors “changes the game,” he said, with the brand up to eight cases selling out of each door every month.
The brand also has room to grow in household penetration. BeatBox is at 4.2%, with plenty of room to increase brand awareness.
“Every 1% increase in household penetration is like another $40 million in revenue,” Fenchel said. “We are going deeper with authentic marketing, consumer marketing, whether it’s festivals, sporting arenas, local events, you name it, bars, on-premise,” he added. “We’re increasing investment dramatically over the next couple years.”
That investment includes $38 million in marketing for 2025 and a partnership and investment from Shaquille O’Neal. Read Brewbound’s previous coverage: BeatBox National Sales Meeting: Shaquille O’Neal Invests, New Product Reveals and a $38M Marketing Spend for 2025.
Fenchel added that a lot of “runway” remains with the company at 32% all commodity volume (ACV).
“We haven’t even scratched the surface in some of the biggest retailers in the world,” he said.
BeatBox leaders stressed throughout the program that adding additional flavors to shelf sets means incremental revenue for their wholesaler partners. The difference of selling one additional BeatBox per store per day is a $110 million in incremental revenue for its distributor partners, Fenchel said.
The company’s goal is to “premiumize the RTD category,” on the way to becoming a global brand, Steadman added.
“We are here to give you a high profit product line that moves just as fast as your beer product lines and be incremental to what you’re doing,” she said.
“We like to say we’re beer velocities with wine margins,” Fenchel added.
Francis shared several stats, including:
- BeatBox’s rate of sale is 33% higher when sold cold versus warm;
- 34% of shoppers drink BeatBox within an hour of purchase;
- 77% of BeatBox consumers purchase two or more BeatBoxes during a shopping trip.
“Cold equals sold,” Francis sold.
Beyond the off-premise, BeatBox’s focus on festivals will play off with a projected 2 million singles (or around 110,000 cases) sold by the end of the year.
Will They Sell?
As BeatBox’s founders recapped the company’s history, they referenced a deal with Four Loko-maker Phusion Projects that ultimately fell through in 2016.
Beatbox’s founders stressed that a sale is not in their plans.
“We are not selling the company,” Fenchel said. “We are having more fun than we’ve ever had. We are in the early innings of this thing, and we’re not fucking leaving. So you got to stay with us.”
“We didn’t start a party company because we’re not social,” Steadman added. “We are people-persons. We love working with y’all. We love hanging out with the customers, but this partnership that we’ve had with y’all has been amazing. And we love this industry. And again, we’re not fucking leaving.”
BeatBox Phasing Out Zero Sugar Line; Malt-Based BeatBox Projected to Hit $15M
BeatBox is phasing out its zero sugar, 6% ABV line of products now that a malt-based version of its party punch is filling the void in more restrictive markets.
The zero sugar line launched in 2021 as a work around in Pennsylvania, a control state, and New York, which prohibits sales of wine above 6% ABV in bodegas.
However, Fenchel told Brewbound that the line is being phased out due to a lack of interest from consumers and the growth of BeatBox’s malt-based version.
“Right now the consumer is telling us we don’t need to push the zero sugar,” he said.
Malt-based BeatBox launched in four flavors in New York in May 2023. The number of flavors has since doubled, and the company is projecting around $15 million in revenue from the malt-based products alone this year, Fenchel said.
“We are one of the top selling products in New York City in the RTD realm,” he continued.
The malt-based product is now available in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Tennessee. Fenchel offered Connecticut as an example of how malt-based BeatBox has opened up an additional 800 accounts.
Fenchel told Brewbound that he believes there will be a place for zero sugar products in the future, but “it’s just not there yet.”
“The customer still likes more flavor and we are lower sugar with our core product. But it just wasn’t selling as well as the 11[% ABV],” he said.
Fenchel cited the wine base as one of the issues the company has struggled with in regards to working with chain buyers.
“The single biggest roadblock to national distribution in the biggest retailers is these big, large format chains classifying us as a wine because it’s wine-based,” he said during a panel discussion with distributors.
At issue is placement on the warm wine shelf as opposed to being placed on the refrigerated shelf with other flavor-forward products.
“The consumer doesn’t give a shit,” Fenchel said. “It needs to be in the right part of the store. We are consistently trying to educate the retailers.
“How do we overcome that as a group?” he continued. “To say this needs to be cold, this needs to be displayed next to the flavors, not in the warm wine aisle. It is the single biggest roadblock to our growth period.”