Why specialty beverages are the future of foodservice

Utah-based dirty soda chain Swig announced Monday the appointment of former Dutch Bros executive, Daniel Batty, as the fast-growing concept’s first chief development officer.

In jumping from one fast-growing beverage chain to another, Batty will help Swig to achieve its long-term goal of growing from 70 locations to 1,400 units over the next eight years.

Swig is best known for being at the forefront of the dirty soda beverage trend — which combines soda, dairy creamer, and flavored syrups and is popular in Utah — and was one of the fastest growing new concepts last year. According to Technomic Top 500 data, Swig had the second-fastest sales growth rate across the beverage and snack category at 39.1%. Swig also had the third-fastest unit growth rate in the category, behind only Crumbl and HTeaO.

With an ambitious long-term goal of building more than 1,300 stores in mind, the company will probably be about 900 franchised shops and 500 corporate stores, with corporate growth likely to move along quicker than franchise growth. Batty is currently in talks with the Swig leadership team to put a development plan in place.