As legal weed continues to make waves in every industry it touches, new trends are upon us. With inevitable corporate interest emerging its large, misshapen, and malevolent head from the concrete jungle in which it resided, where is it looking towards? Beverages infused with extracts, and more specifically, CBD.
From polar bears, to Santa Claus, to celebrity spokespeople, to emotionally charged advertising, and now onto CBD, beverage mogul Coca Cola has been reportedly making headway into the budding Cannabis Industry. Shocking – or is it? One could argue that a move such as this makes sense for a leading company in the beverage space.
Any health-conscious, somewhat-educated person would agree that soda has seen its place in the spotlight. One could even point to, say, the spike in popularity of seltzer-water over the last decade, as it corroborates that less and less people are drinking soda, while choosing the healthier alternative. National Beverage Corp. has seen their stock nearly quadruple in price over the past 4 years, largely due to the soaring popularity of their seltzer-water brand, “La Croix,” while earning market share from soda manufacturers like the fabled Coca Cola.
As any dynamic conglomerate should, Coca Cola has wasted no time securing assets far and wide outside of their typical portfolio. For instance, UK coffee giant, Costa Coffee was recently acquired by the omnipresent beverage company. An acquisition that confirms the soda manufacturers desire to fill in a financial gap that the drop in soda consumption has purportedly created for the organization.
It’s no wonder that quality-forward, Canadian cannabis heavyweight, Aurora Cannabis has been rumored to have had discussions with Coca Cola, as reported earlier this year by BNN, Bloomberg Television, though Coca Cola did not comment on the story.
With brands like Hemp Water being picked up by WalMart, and TKO by Tyson being distributed through e-commerce giant Amazon, it makes sense that beverage companies have interest in this newly-emerging space as a source of revenue. Coca Cola, Molson Coors, Heineken NV and other beverage manufacturers seem eager to enter the world of cannabis, with several products either already on the shelves, or rumored to be in development.
We can only hope that if Coca Cola chooses to move forward with their rumored endeavor, that they do it with interest outside of lining their pockets, and perhaps with the interest of bettering society as a whole.
As I take a puff of my 8:1 CBD oil, I remain skeptical at best.
