Buda Juice CEO Horatio Lonsdale-Hands Named Finalist For The EY US Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 Southwest Award

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 23, 2026--

Buda Juice, Inc. (NYSE American: BUDA), $BUDA, creator and pioneer of the Ultra Fresh category, today announced Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Horatio Lonsdale-Hands has been named a finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 Southwest Award by Ernst & Young LLP (EY US).

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260423188880/en/

Horatio Lonsdale-Hands, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Buda Juice, commented:

“Being named a finalist is an honor and a reflection of what our team has built over the past decade. We believed consumers deserved a fresher alternative, so we built the infrastructure required to deliver it at scale. Although our products now reach more households through leading retailers, we believe we are still in the early stages of building the Ultra Fresh category. This recognition belongs to our loyal customers, team members and retail partners who helped make it possible.”

Now in its 41st year, the Entrepreneur Of The Year program celebrates the bold leaders who disrupt markets through the world’s most ground-breaking companies, revolutionizing industries and uplifting communities. The program honors entrepreneurs whose innovations drive economic growth and help shape the future of business.

Entrepreneur Of The Year honors business leaders for their ingenuity, courage and entrepreneurial spirit. The program celebrates founders who bootstrapped their businesses from inception or raised outside capital to grow their companies, transformational CEOs who infused innovation into an existing organization to catapult its trajectory, and multigenerational family business leaders who reimagined a legacy business model to strengthen it for the future.

About Buda Juice

Buda Juice (NYSE American: BUDA) is the creator and pioneer of the Ultra Fresh™ category through an end-to-end cold chain platform that delivers always-cold, freshly crafted juices, lemonades and wellness shots to grocery retailers. The Company provides a turnkey alternative to shelf-stable beverages and in-store juicing, enabling retailers to offer truly fresh, clean-label products without added infrastructure or operational complexity. Its continuous 35°F cold chain from fruit to shelf delivers products with an 8 to 12-day shelf life that preserves authentic taste and nutrient quality while enabling efficient retail distribution.

Buda Juice’s proprietary cold-chain infrastructure enables the Company to scale the Ultra Fresh category nationally while maintaining the quality, safety and consistency required by leading grocery retailers, with a disciplined focus on profitability. Additional information about the Company can be found at https://budajuice.com.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year ®

Founded in 1986, Entrepreneur Of The Year ® has celebrated more than 11,000 ambitious visionaries who are leading successful, dynamic businesses in the US, and it has since expanded to nearly 80 countries and territories globally.

The US program consists of 17 regional programs whose panels of independent judges select the regional award winners every June. Those winners compete for national recognition at the Strategic Growth Forum ® in November, where national finalists and award winners are announced. The national overall winner represents the US at the World Entrepreneur Of The Year® competition. Visit ey.com/us/eoy.

About EY

EY is building a better working world by creating new value for clients, people, society and the planet, while building trust in capital markets.

Enabled by data, AI and advanced technology, EY teams help clients shape the future with confidence and develop answers for the most pressing issues of today and tomorrow.

EY teams work across a full spectrum of services in assurance, consulting, tax, strategy and transactions. Fueled by sector insights, a globally connected, multi-disciplinary network and diverse ecosystem partners, EY teams can provide services in more than 150 countries and territories. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com

Buda Juice Co-Founder and CEO Horatio Lonsdale-Hands

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Judges at the International Criminal Court on Thursday confirmed crimes against humanity charges against former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte for deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he allegedly oversaw while in office.

A three-judge panel found unanimously there were “substantial grounds” to believe the ex-leader was responsible for dozens of murders, first as mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao and later when he was president from 2016 to 2022.

Duterte, 81, was arrested in the Philippines last year. He denies the charges against him.

In their 50-page decision, judges found that the evidence shows that Duterte “developed, disseminated and implemented” a policy “to ‘neutralize’ alleged criminals.”

According to prosecutors, police and hit squad members carried out dozens of murders at Duterte’s behest starting in 2011, motivated by the promise of money or to avoid becoming targets themselves.

“For some, killing reached the level of a perverse form of competition,” deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang told the court in pretrial hearings in February.

Estimates of the death toll during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the national police have reported to up to 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.

Prosecutors said in a statement on Wednesday that the decision “represents a significant milestone” in their effort to bring accountability.

Duterte's lead defense lawyer Nick Kaufman told The Associated Press he was disappointed in the decision, saying it “is based on the uncorroborated statements of vicious self-confessed murderers acting as cooperating witnesses.”

A date for the start of the trial has not yet been set.

Duterte has not been present in the courtroom for any hearings, having waived his right to appear. Last month judges found he was fit to stand trial, after postponing an earlier hearing over concerns about his health.

In the Philippines, families of slain victims in the brutal anti-drugs crackdown rejoiced over the decision, saying it will bring them closer to justice and toward a closure of a tragic chapter in their lives.

“This is for all the victims, who were not even given the chance to be recognized as victims because their stories were twisted in police reports, investigations and findings,” said Randy delos Santos, whose nephew, Kian delos Santos, was gunned down in an alley in August 2017 by three police officers.

“Unlike Kian, most other victims were nameless, voiceless and were just numbers and statistics whose horrific stories were never heard. Now the ICC will give their stories a chance to be told,” delos Santos told The Associated Press.

Human rights groups also praised the decision.

“Duterte’s trial will send a powerful message that no one responsible for grave crimes is above the law, whether in the Philippines or elsewhere, and that justice will eventually catch up with them,” Maria Elena Vignoli, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch, said.

ICC prosecutors said in 2018 that they would open a preliminary investigation into the violent drug crackdowns. In a move that human rights activists say was aimed at avoiding accountability, Duterte, who was president at the time, announced a month later that the Philippines would leave the court.

On Tuesday, appeals judges rejected a request from Duterte’s legal team to throw out the case on the grounds that the court did not have jurisdiction because of the Philippine withdrawal.

In October, judges disqualified the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan from the case, citing a “reasonable appearance of bias” because he represented victims of Duterte’s alleged crimes before he took office at the ICC. Khan had already stepped back from his duties pending the outcome of an independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Associated Press journalist Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Oct. 26, 2016 file photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivers a speech at the Philippine Economic Forum in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)