For the first time in decades, the US Dietary Guidelines no longer tell Americans how much alcohol is safe to drink. That change is smaller than the industry hoped and larger than it wanted to admit.

2025 was the year the beverage and CPG industry stopped being able to blame external disruption for structural problems. The data was clear, the consumer had changed, and the brands that acted on that clarity built something durable. Here is what the year produced.

Liquid Death built a billion dollar brand selling water in beer cans by ignoring every conventional rule in the beverage playbook. The first chapter was about proving the concept. The second chapter is harder because it requires building a business that justifies the belief.

In 2014 Fairlife had $10 million in retail sales. By 2024 it had nearly $4 billion. Coca-Cola acquired it and then did something most large companies cannot do with a small brand: they left it alone long enough to find out what it actually was.

Poppi was turned down on Shark Tank, nearly ran out of money, and spent years building in a category nobody believed in. Then PepsiCo paid $1.95 billion for it. The story of how it got there is one of the most instructive brand building narratives in recent beverage history.

Tens of millions of Americans are on or cycling through GLP-1 medications. The consumer coming out the other side thinks differently about food and drink than the one who went in. Here is what that means for every brand in the market.