Organic hard soda brand Crooked Pop has appointed Lee Schill as Chief Commercial Officer, tasking the 25-year CPG veteran with leading sales, distributor partnerships, and channel strategy as the brand pursues national retail and on-premise expansion.
Schill arrives from Zevia, where he served as Senior Director of Distribution, and before that spent 20 years at Diageo across retail, convenience, club, and on-premise channels. The hire pairs his distribution-network expertise with CEO Ben Weiss's category-building pedigree — Weiss founded Bai, the better-for-you beverage brand that Dr Pepper Snapple Group acquired for $1.7 billion in 2016.
Commercial Momentum
The appointment comes as Crooked Pop's retail footprint begins to take shape. The brand launched along the East Coast in April at Total Wine and Harris Teeter, and has since secured a distribution agreement with Reyes Beverage Group, the Illinois-based mega-wholesaler. On the on-premise side, Crooked Pop has locked in first-mover stadium partnerships as the Official Hard Soda of the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — venues that offer high-volume trial opportunities and brand visibility for an emerging beverage category.
"It's our ambition to establish zero-sugar hard soda as a durable category in the growing Ready-to-Drink market," said Weiss. "Lee has spent his career building the distributor relationships and commercial infrastructure that determine whether a beverage succeeds, and his experience across both alcohol and zero-sugar soda makes him uniquely qualified to help us build Crooked Pop into a national brand."
The Product Differentiator
Crooked Pop is positioned as the world's first USDA-certified organic, zero-sugar, gluten-free hard soda — a combination the brand argues addresses both the health-conscious consumer shift and the growing RTD alcohol segment. The liquid is built on OSAVA, a proprietary fermentation process using ancient grains that the company says produces a clean, neutral alcohol base. The same platform underpins Crooked Tea, the brand's hard tea line.
Schill called out the formulation as the deciding factor in joining. "Crooked Pop is the rare case where the liquid itself is genuinely different," he said. "My job is to make sure the commercial infrastructure keeps pace, from the distributor network and channel strategy to execution at retail."
For operators tracking the RTD and better-for-you alcohol space, Crooked Pop's channel strategy — spanning grocery, convenience, and stadium on-premise — mirrors moves that have worked for crossover brands targeting health-oriented drinkers. Coverage from Food & Beverage Magazine has tracked this convergence of wellness trends and alcohol innovation as one of the more durable shifts reshaping the restaurant and bar beverage landscape. Whether Schill's distributor relationships can translate that positioning into consistent shelf presence and velocity at retail will be the test that matters.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
