Center Store

ATLANTA — Coca-Cola’s Honest Tea brand began the rollout of its Not Too Sweet Tea, a traditional sweet tea with 40% less sugar and calories than the leading sweet teas. The new addition to Honest Tea’s lineup is brewed with organic black tea leaves and is sweetened with “just a tad” (25 g) of organic cane sugar and organic stevia. Each 16.9-fl.-oz. bottle contains 100 calories, compared with leading brands of sweet tea, which contain an average of 43 g of sugar and 174 calories per 16.9-fl.-oz. bottle.

CHICAGO — Mike's Hard Lemonade launched this month a multimillion-dollar campaign that the brand calls "a bold departure from traditional beer category advertising" and includes television, digital, mobile and social media outreach.

WASHINGTON — A consumer group is urging the Food and Drug Administration to review a proprietary point-of-purchase nutrition rating system that it said is "inconsistent with FDA guidance statements and enforcement correspondence, federal nutrition programs and recommendations from the Institute of Medicine."

For niche brands, getting a foot in the door of mass market retail is no easy feat, and the stakes remain high as retailers have, in recent years, trimmed SKU counts and grown increasingly risk-adverse.

SHELTON, Conn. — Bic Consumer Products USA’s new FlameDisk offers consumers a convenient, portable alternative to charcoal. FlameDisk, which uses ethanol as its main fuel ingredient, heats up quickly and is cleaner than charcoal. The portable disk, which fits most charcoal grills, is ready to use in minutes after lighting and provides a steady flame for between 35 and 45 minutes — about the same rate as charcoal. With no ashes or soot to remove, cleanup is easy. Once FlameDisk is cool, the aluminum container can be thrown away. FlameDisk retails for $4.99 for one disk.

NEW YORK — Anchor Bay Entertainment is bringing more "Chuggington" adventures to DVD this summer.

LOS ANGELES — A leader in mosquito repelling solutions now is selling its products worldwide.

At first blush, there appears to be nothing special about Dollar General’s first Southern California store in the suburb of Montclair. It occupies about 7,500 sq. ft. of space in an aging strip center, and a small banner hung on the exterior beckons to passing motorists and pedestrians, “Now Open.” Inside, more signs explain the bare-bones merchandising of familiar brands to shoppers unfamiliar with the Dollar General value proposition.