RIVER CITY BEVERAGES

Centered around the three principles of innovation, development, and packaging, River City Beverages, founded in Columbus, is the best partner for all steps of bringing your drink idea to life. From conception to consumption, they offer a smooth step-by-step process to help you develop a delicious drink.

Founded in 2008 by Jimmy McKinstry, an experienced professional in the beverage industry, River City Beverages has been built on a strong family-owned and operated base. Once you come to them with a drink idea or prototype, River City Beverages scientifically works in their in-house lab to create a formula to perfect your beverage. Ranging from sodas to coffees, flavored waters, and more, their highly experienced team can do it all. Keeping up with trends, River City Beverages has also mastered the art of packing, making sure your product is protected through the process. Kelly Mckinstry, the chief financial officer and co-founder of the company, thoughtfully took the time to answer a few questions from SVM, touching on what inspired the creation of RCB, popular product requests, and how RCB guides you through the development process.

What is River City Beverages and what services does it offer to companies and individuals? River City Beverages is a full-service beverage company that prides itself in what we call “conception to consumption.” Meaning our customers can come to us with their ideas. We can formulate and guide them throughout the process until the final product is achieved!

What inspired the creation of River City Beverages? My father, Jimmy McKinstry who is a beverage industry veteran, and I started as a consulting group. It grew to the point that customers would ask if we could make the concentrated flavors. We decided that we were missing a portion of the business and decided to open a manufacturing facility where we were able to produce concentrated beverage flavors.

What are some of the trends you have seen in the packaging and beverage industry? I have seen a lot of different trends in the beverage industry. Current trends in the industry are clean labels, meaning the fewer ingredients the better. Sugars being a big part of that. Natural sweeteners and flavors are a high priority. Due to Covid, along with beverages, we now have the capability to manufacture sanitizers for both hand and hard surfaces.

Selecting “the right” six-pack is becoming a daunting task. So many choices. How can River City Beverages help companies stand out from the pack? Because we are independently owned, we are able to work with our customers and guide them to their final decision, and we are able to get them to the market faster; whereas, a larger corporation would not give companies attention to details. River City Beverages can also custom make any formulation for a customer.

Which ingredients or product types have presented the biggest challenge to you, and how did or will you overcome these? Many ingredients provide challenges from a taste standpoint. The challenge is deciding what flavors best mask the “off-notes” of the ingredient the customer is asking us to use.

What types of products are your customers requesting the most? Right now they are requesting energy drinks, low/no sugar, flavored sparkling water, traditional carbonated soft drinks, teas, and mixes for cocktails.

All products are different but how long-average-does the process to develop a new formula for a client take? It can take from 6 weeks in some cases. But it has taken up to 2 years to fully develop a final formula. At the end of the day, it is totally up to our customers to determine what they want for the final taste for their product.