Prime committed to buying 18.5M cases of itself a year — then a $67.7M suit showed demand never arrived

When Congo Brands signed the contract a bottler now calls the Truesdale Agreement, it agreed to buy at least 18.5 million 12-pack cases of Prime Hydration every year — 55.5 million cases over three years. That figure was Congo's own forecast of Prime's demand, made binding at the moment the brand looked unstoppable. Two public records now let anyone measure how far the forecast missed.

The bottler, Refresco Beverages US, built a dedicated production line at its Truesdale, Missouri plant to make Prime's custom 16.9-ounce PET bottles, and protected that investment with a take-or-pay floor: if Congo failed to buy and take delivery of at least 90% of the agreed annual volume, it owed a per-case fee on every case it didn't take. A minimum-volume clause is a number a buyer puts its own money behind, which is why the case reads from the outside. Congo backed 18.5 million cases a year. By Refresco's account, no bottle ever came off the Truesdale line, and Refresco sued in Delaware for at least $67.7 million.

What Congo signed for

Prime Hydration was founded in 2022 by the YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul, with Congo Brands holding a 60% stake and the two founders 20% each. Refresco built an exclusive line in Truesdale tooled for Prime's custom-shaped 16.9-ounce PET bottle, and in exchange Congo committed to the 18.5-million-case annual minimum and the 90% take-or-pay penalty. Bottlers do not build dedicated, custom-molded lines on a handshake; they build them against volume commitments that amortize the capital. The minimum was the price of the line.

That is why the minimum functions as a forecast rather than a courtesy. To clear 18.5 million 12-pack cases a year — 222 million individual bottles — Congo had to believe Prime's 2022–2023 run would hold. In November 2023, Bloomberg reported Prime was on track to pass $1.2 billion in annual sales, having at points outsold Gatorade at Walmart. The contract bet that the curve kept climbing.

How the line never ran

Refresco's complaint lays out the failure as a sequence. By 2024, it alleges, sales had fallen below Prime's expectations, driven by seasonal declines Prime “failed to predict” and “the fading of the social media buzz that had powered the rapid initial increase of Prime Hydration sales in 2022 and early 2023.” As that slowdown set in, Refresco says Congo stalled: on March 20, 2024, Steve Polce, Congo's manager for external manufacturing, emailed that “the decision was made to not move forward.” These are one side's allegations, and the underlying facts are contested. Congo's defense, recorded in the court's order, is that the Truesdale Agreement terminated on November 15, 2023 and that the parties never executed a full Master Supply Agreement.

The damages figure shows how a take-or-pay clause turns a demand miss into a balance-sheet event. Refresco's $67.7 million is built from the take-or-pay penalties plus the upfront capital it sank into the custom molds and machinery for Prime's bottle. Congo contracted to absorb the risk that demand would soften; when it did, the clause converted the shortfall into a fixed claim.

Prime's own accounts

Prime Hydration UK's accounts, filed at Companies House for the year to December 31, 2024, are the independent check on whether the demand the contract assumed arrived. Turnover fell from £112.2 million to £32.8 million, a drop of roughly 71%; gross profit fell 85% and net profit 92%. The UK directors framed the move as a transition “from an initial hyper growth phase to a more sustainable, long-term presence in the market.” The slide had shown up earlier in scanner data: by early 2024, US Prime sales were down about 40% year over year and UK first-quarter sales fell 50%, from £26.8 million to £12.8 million, per NielsenIQ figures reported by The Grocer. Two records built on different methods point at the same gap.

Where the case stands

Refresco refiled in the Delaware Superior Court's Complex Commercial Litigation Division, where the case now sits as C.A. No. N25C-02-503 before President Judge Eric M. Davis. On August 28, 2025, Davis let the breach-of-contract and promissory-estoppel counts proceed while dismissing a duplicative declaratory-judgment count. The core breach claim is live, and with it the question of whether Congo owes for cases it never ordered.

For anyone underwriting a creator-led brand, the lesson sits in the structure. Supply commitments made at a hype peak carry a forecast inside them, and a take-or-pay floor makes that forecast enforceable long after the buzz fades. Prime's minimum was 18.5 million cases a year; its UK turnover landed at £32.8 million. The gap between those two numbers is what a $67.7 million claim now turns on.