The number of collaborations taking a food or beverage brand’s distinctive taste into another, unexpected, food or beverage category continues to grow. Over the last year, one flavor—cheese, in all its many varieties and forms—has been at the center of several such partnerships. Examples range from cheese-infused alcoholic beverages to cheesy ice cream and donuts: […]
Archive | Food/Beverage
Collaborative Cups of Tea
Specialty teas and gift sets centered around tea do not represent a new category for licensing, but the number of deals (mostly for limited editions) and the variety of properties involved have both been growing recently. Here is some of what four leading licensed tea purveyors have been up to when it comes to collaborations: […]
Raising a Glass to the Season
The 2022 holiday season has given rise to a handful of collaborations pairing the flavors of eggnog and spirits. For example: Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a frequent collaborator with outside brands, teamed with Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey for a non-alcoholic Boozy Eggnog ice cream flavor. The limited edition is available in Jeni’s scoop shops nationwide, […]
Health Food
Kids’ properties often lend their names to healthy snacks, although the practice tends to rise and fall cyclically. This year seems to be an active period for such pairings—some long-term, some short-term and promotional—with a number of properties and a number of different product types involved. Nearly all of these products are veggie- and fruit-forward, […]
Horrific Hops
Limited-edition Halloween-themed craft beer collaborations have been on the rise over the past few years, with 2022 as active as ever in terms of the number of examples. Entertainment properties of the horror genre, candy brands used for trick-or-treating, and musical acts whose stage presence, lyrics, and/or graphics are Halloween-appropriate, are well represented: Entertainment. This […]
Tea Party
An estimated 450,000-plus tea and tea-drink shops were operating in China at the beginning of this year, according to the China Tea Marketing Association. These include both traditional tea shops and new-style shops focused on flavored milk, fruit, bubble, and even cheese teas, with new-style chains growing quickly over the past several years (despite a […]
Never Drink Alone
The food and beverage sector remains one of the most active categories in the licensing landscape, with no let-up in sight, and the beverage half of the equation has been particularly busy in 2022. While licensing and collaborations involving beverages are not new by any means, there is more white space for licensors to make […]
Snacking While Streaming
Food and beverage-related brands have represented one of the key sectors involved in e-sports promotions over the past year and a half, partnering with e-sports teams and organizations for live events, streamed content, and sometimes merchandise sales or giveaways. Some examples: E-sports organization FaZe Clan paired with General Mills’ Totino’s brand to create special flavors […]
Cheers To Canned Cocktail Collaborations
Licensors across property types have made their presence known across most categories of alcoholic beverage by this point, whether that be beer; wine; spirits including vodka, tequila, and whiskey; or hard seltzer. The hottest category for collaboration of late has been ready-to-drink cocktails, with a range of examples coming to market since January of this […]
Spicing Up Food and Beverage Licensing
Spice and seasoning brands historically have played a relatively small part on the large and still growing food-and-beverage licensing stage, with some long-time exceptions (such as McCormick’s Old Bay brand). More recently, however, a growing number of players in this space have entered the field as licensors and/or licensees, some of them very actively. In […]