Coffee, tea, cider and snacks were among the many licensed products we saw at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York.

Two Rivers’ David Coffee

Among the trends we observed:

• Licensed brands continue to be evident in coffee and other beverages.

Two Rivers Coffee has shipped Bailey’s Irish Cream cappuccino that packages six frothing milk packets with six flavored coffee K-cups and is readying ground coffee for introduction in October. Meanwhile, White Coffee signed a license that brings the Harry & David brand for the first time into ground and K-cup coffee, the latter to be sold in a package containing 18 cups and five flavors.

Meanwhile, Two Rivers also is readying Welch’s K-cup-based fruit ciders that will be available in five flavors and sold in 12-packs. Two Rivers has previously marketed Lemonhead lemon apple and Red Hots spicy ciders under a licensing deal with candymaker Ferrara Candy Co.

In another beverage-related development, Brand Castle showed its new Guinness-branded beer bread, caramel pretzel brownie and chocolate stout cupcake mixes.

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  Kervans Sunkist Products

   

  Sunkist Growers Inc. cooperative is moving into fruit gummies under a licensing agreement with Turkish candymaker Kervan. Sunkist fruit gummies, which will ship in August, will be positioned to compete with Welch’s and other brand, says Kervan’s Ben Cassese. Kervan has sharpened its focus on licensing since introducing its own Yumy Yumy gummies brand and licensed the Curious George and Peanuts brands. Curious George and Peanuts fruit snacks have been a top-seller at Dollar Tree, averaging monthly sales of 300,000 and 160,000 units, respectively, says Cassese. Kervan also has a license with Crayola for gummies. It previously had one with NFL Players Inc.

• With Mary Poppins Returns due in theaters from Disney in December, Brand Castle displayed a licensed gingerbread house kit tied to the film.

• Inventure Foods’ new owner Utz is continuing licenses for Nathan’s Famous (hot dog potato chips and beer battered onion rings) and TGI Fridays (potato skin and mozzarella chips), says Utz’s David Purcell. Utz acquired Inventure last fall for $165 million.

• Collegiate licensees for pecans and peanuts are moving to trim their license roster to focus on fewer schools in light of rising royalty rates. Indianola Pecan House cut its college license roster for Wheeler’s brand pecans in half to seven, now focusing on schools in the Southeastern Conference, says Indianola’s Lisa Tate. At the same time, Virginia Diner “might be better off” focusing is licensed salted and butter toffee peanuts on 20 schools rather than the 49 it currently has agreements with, says Scott Stephens. “There are some schools where aren’t selling enough products,” says Stephens. “If I could do business with just 20 schools I might be better off, because then I could really focus on them.”

Contacts:

Brand Castle, Morgan Lamb, Marketing Mgr., 216-364-0583, morgan.lamb@brandcastle.com

Indianola Pecan House/Wheeler’s, Lisa Tate, VP Sales, 662-887-5420, ltate@pecanhouse.com

Kervan, Ben Cassese, VP Sales and Business Development, 610-443-2200 x120, ben@kervanusa.com

Two Rivers Coffee, Steven Schreiber, Co-Founder, 908-205-0018m steven@brooklynbeans.com

Utz, Dave Purcell, VP Sales, 623-932-6210, dave.purcell@bouldcanyonfoods.com

Virginia Diner, Scott Stephens, Sales and Marketing Dir., 757-758-7920, Stephens@vadiner.com

White Coffee, Jeannette Levy, National Sales Dir., 718-204-7900 x173, jlevy@whitecoffee.com