Our Story
An inventor/salesperson and a visionary with similar views about community and planet come together to create Beverage Solutions.
Beverage Solutions is built on an interesting history of passion and talents. Created in 2009 it was the rich pasts of the two founders, Leslie Haas Clanton and Richard Crofton-Sleigh coming together that made it all possible.
Leslie, owner of Southern Haaspitality, LLC and Boberry® Designs began creating eco-friendly, upscale accessories for the wine market in 1997. Always the recycler and one to hang on to things (“you just never know!”), those long narrow limited edition fabric scraps left over as cuttings from the gift bag business were just too gorgeous to throw away. While perfect for hair scrunchies, she was in the wine business, not in the hair accessory business. While selling her limited edition fabric wine bags at festivals, Leslie had seen bare wire holders that (sort of) fit festival glasses, leather slings and wrap-arounds that worked for just stemware, but then came her “ah-ha” moment…a profitable, festive and more versatile new alternative to every other style on the market…a “scrunchie” design over wire!
In clear fashion, no detail was left out, and the popular ‘Very Boberry® “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” became her passion, and her first patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Leslie’s aha moment as recorded by Mutual of Omaha.
Leslie also made a concerted effort to find a way to help those in her community…to match her manufacturing and assembly needs with individuals with disabilities and eventually sheltered workshops.
While attending a food and wine festival, Richard Crofton-Sleigh observed Leslie in action and was impressed by her enthusiastic demonstration to every festival attendee that came near how she had a fun and practical solution to their obvious dilemma — their ’struggle to juggle’ food samples, wine glass and shopping bags. She had even tried to adapt her wine glass holders to work with bottled water and other cylindrical containers such as soda cans and beer bottles. While she had a clever way to make it adapt to those containers, Richard knew that “there had to be a better way!” Richard’s “Ah-ha” moment and his solution was to combine the lanyard and a silicone band together to create a totally new product. Hence, the Sport Your Drink™ beverage holder was born and a new partnership formed, Beverage Solutions.
Sport Your Drink aha moment as recorded by Mutual of Omaha.
Richard flies for a company that provides television coverage of major sporting events which has taken him to all of the lower 48 states. He now uses his Sport Your Drink™ beverage holder while flying as it allows him to keep his hands free to operate controls.
Richard often observed at sporting events he was covering, all the trash left behind in the stadiums and realized that if the fans could benefit from wearing their beverage, not only would they be hands free to clap, cheer and eat, but there could also be a significant reduction in the amount of trash to clean up. And the possibilities of customizing the lanyard and silicone band were limitless.
Today, Beverage Solutions is a growing company with big goals and a big heart capable of supporting marketing, sales, operations, production, distribution, and fulfillment, and maintain the original vision and passion of both Leslie and Richard.
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