Spain's footballing victory over Holland last night brought to an end a month-long perfect storm for our industry. A worldwide sporting event, coupled with the turning of the media spotlight to the emerging markets of Africa, while the sun has been shining over Western Europe – it really doesn't get better than that.

So, while the bean counters are holed up in companies' basements with abacuses (abacii?), the time is now upon us to get back to the basics of arguing over minimum pricing in Russia, crossing fingers in the hope that the worst of the downturn is behind us, not buying Ukrainian vodka companies and claiming that a legal row is merely “a dispute over financially immaterial terms”.

Yes, ours is a lively industry indeed.

Top story last week was Cott Corp's move to buy Cliffstar Corp in North America. Click here for our soft drink specialist's view on the deal which pairs the largest private-label soft drink maker in North America with the biggest global private-label juice company.

Finally, we published our latest management briefing for just-drinks subscribers last week. For a detailed look at the BRICM markets, head on over to here for the full contents of the six-part report.

Until next time...

Olly Wehring
Managing Editor
Web: http://www.just-drinks.com
Email: editor@just-drinks.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/just_drinks