’You Need More People’ to Grow, CEO Tells Barclays Audience
September 14, 2023
Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey and North America President Jennifer Mann sat down on Sept 7 for an on-stage interview with equities analyst Lauren Lieberman at the Barclays Consumer Staples Conference in Boston. A key message from Quincey and Mann was Coca-Cola’s pursuit of...
As you’ll read in today’s newsletter, BodyArmor’s newest product is not a liquid. It’s a powder, packaged in a single-serve stick. The sports drink brand is the latest to add the format, which is catching on with consumers looking for convenient and highly portable functionality.
Analysts at Consumer Edge Research wrote in March that single-serve, non-ready-to-drink beverages — while small relative to the entire US non-alcoholic beverage market — were growing...
When Kevin Keane joined the American Beverage Association in 2005 as SVP of policy and public affairs, industry issues were well focused on a single category. “We were talking largely about soda pop,” he recalled last week in an interview after being named the U.S. trade group’s CEO late last month. “Now there are so many different products that we're ...
Wall Street analysts are on high alert for shifts in pricing and volume trends within the US consumer packaged goods sectors, including beverages. A worst-case scenario would be decelerating pricing growth without a corresponding bump in volume performance, which would depress dollar sales growth trends. In an Aug. 22 report, A/B Bernstein analyst Callum Elliott summed up the current state-of-play this way: “With the period of ...
Alpha-Diver, in Partnership With Beverage Digest, Delved into the Consumer Behavior Behind Brand Choices
June 28, 2023
Alpha-Diver and Beverage Digest are pleased to unveil the industry’s first comprehensive psychology-based ranking of consumer beverage brands – The BEV50. The study was conducted by neuro-market researchers at Alpha-Diver in partnership with Beverage Digest to help beverage companies understand the WHY of consumer behavior.
In this exclusive webinar, registrants will learn...
Carbonated soft drink pricing at retail accelerated last month, according to new Nielsen data published by Goldman Sachs. As shown in the table, CSD pricing jumped +17.2% in the four weeks ending June 3, which included the Memorial Day holiday. That growth rate was faster than the +16.6% increase achieved in the latest 52-week period, according to the data, which covers...
Monster and Red Bull Power Growing Energy Category
May 26, 2023
Celsius moved up two spots to the No. 3 energy drink at US retail behind Monster and Red Bull after doubling sales during the first quarter of this year, according to BD data. As shown in the table...
Table included:
Prime, the sports drink challenger incubated by Congo Brands and co-founded last year by social media influencers Logan Paul and KSI, has bounded its way into a US sports drink category dominated by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. As shown in the Green Sheet with this story...
Tables included:
U.S. Non-Carbs at Retail by Category: Q1 2023 (Volume, Dollars, Pricing)
GREEN SHEETS included: Non-Carbonated Beverages: Q1 2023
‘Dink’ Latest Example of Beverages Targeting Exploding Pickleball Community
April 6, 2023
The exploding popularity of pickleball in the US has created a gold rush for beverage companies looking to capitalize on the sport, which is a miniaturized version of tennis played with a hollow plastic ball, oversized ping-pong-like paddle, and bespoke set of rules. A large part of the appeal of pickleball is the democratic nature of the game, which proponents say draws a diverse group of players from across the spectrum of age and athletic ability. That reach, coupled with the social nature of pickleball, is good for consumer packaged goods brands, too, say Pennsylvania craft beer brewers and beverage co-packers Joe and Abby Feerrar. The husband-and-wife team is launching what they believe to be the first non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage created with pickleball players specifically in mind. “Dink,” named for the shot that is a staple of the small-court game, will debut this weekend at a pickleball event...
Our debut episode, “Is Gatorade Beatable?” explores Coca-Cola’s mission to use a combined BodyArmor and Powerade to overtake sports drink leader Gatorade in the coming years. Coke leaders are through being an also-ran in this category, and PepsiCo has no plans to give up its supremacy. That will make for great competition, even as the category shifts beneath both companies’ feet with the emergence of “rapid hydration.”
Episode 2, “Is Sprite Beatable?” delves into PepsiCo’s Starry lemon-lime soda launch and the company’s plans to disrupt the dominance of Coca-Cola’s Sprite. We discuss how Sprite spent decades embracing hip-hop and the NBA to build a loyal consumer base, and how PepsiCo has decided to start from scratch with Starry to reach Gen Z consumers after years of struggles with lemon-lime brands including Sierra Mist.