It must be a tough job to keep Coke’s management motivated. Hence the company is planning to award stock worth about USD 13 billion (EUR 9.5 billion) to its senior managers over the next four years, based on the company’s current stock price. When combined with awards from previously approved compensation plans, this figure rises to USD 24 billion. That’s according to estimates by Wintergreen Advisors, a long-time Coke shareholder.

The same day a Coke shareholder publicly complained about excessive corporate rewards for Coke’s management, The Economist newspaper ran a column headed “Corporate headquarters have put on weight and need to slim down again”.

Is it the lure of the ampersand that we got Gieves & Hawkes (tailors), Fortnum & Mason (food store), Gilbert & George (artists), … plus tatties & neaps, blood & thunder, shock & awe, and now Smith & Forge, a new cider launched by MillerCoors in the United States?

Perhaps the controversy around the Brewers’ Association (BA) and its attack on “crafty beers” has had some good. In early March 2014 the BA revised its definition of a craft brewer. The revised definition states: “An American craft brewer is small, independent and traditional.”

It ’s still a rumour but the food industry investor C. Dean Metropoulos has offered the Pabst Brewing Company for sale. Pabst Blue Ribbon is a retro-chic “blue-collar beer” enjoyed by hipsters and budget drinkers alike.

As brewers struggled in the U.S., drinks companies were on a roll. This got MillerCoors thinking – and the result is the launch of two high-alcoholic tipples, aimed at men who tend to drink spirits.

It ’s a cruel world. Because PepsiCo, the company that unites a snacks and a soft drinks business under its roof, has for the past five years underperformed in stock price, operating margins and earnings growth compared with its peers, an “activist” investor in PepsiCo, Nelson Peltz, on 20 February 2014 sent a letter to its board that once again put pressure on the company to consider a spinoff of its beverage business.

Coca-Cola partnering with a coffee roaster? They couldn’t get Nespresso, so they bought a stake in the U.S. company Green Mountain instead? Wrong guess. The transaction, which was announced on 10 February 2014, has got nothing to do with hot drinks. It’s all about cold drinks in capsules. Coca-Cola will pay USD 1.25 billion (EUR 913 million) for a 10 percent stake in coffee roaster Green Mountain in order to expand Green Mountain’s “Keurig Cold” capsule system globally.

Chicago’s Goose Island brewery was only the first. In its effort to expand its range of craft beer (or “crafty”) offerings, AB-InBev has agreed to buy the Blue Point Brewing Company, famous for its Toasted Lager brand. The deal was announced on 5 February 2014.

Take it as a sign that competition among craft brewers is heating up that, since December last year Boston Beer, the brewer of Sam Adams beer, and California’s Lagunitas brewery have been engaged in a slugfest. For Jim Koch, the founder of Boston Beer, this row cannot have come at a worse time as in 2014, Boston Beer celebrates its 30th anniversary.