
Recovery Mode
By Julie Cook Ramirez
Relieved the low-carb craze is all but dead, juice
makers prepare for a comeback.
aiting with bated breath as the low-carb craze barely
clings to life, juice makers aren’t quite ready to heave a sigh of
relief just yet. After all, consumers haven’t seemed much in the mood
for juices lately.
In large part, they’ve even rejected the many
reduced-carbohydrate products that juice makers rushed to produce when the
craze was at its peak. Most major players jumped on the low-carb bandwagon,
offering reduced-sugar, reduced-calorie juice alternatives, typically
sweetened with Splenda. They included Apple & Eve’s Light &
Fruitful, Minute Maid Premium Light and Tropicana Essentials Light ‘n
Healthy.
While Ron Schroder, director of marketing for
Davenport, Iowa-based Swiss Valley Farms, believes such product innovations
“are helping consumers look at juice in a new way,” the fact
remains that refrigerated juices and drinks turned in a less-than-stellar
performance during the 52-week period ending July 10, 2005. Throughout
supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers, excluding Wal-Mart,
dollar sales were up 1 percent, while unit sales rose 0.2 percent,
according to Chicago-based Information Resources Inc. (IRI).
REFRIGERATED JUICE AND DRINK SALES* | ||||
$ Sales (In Millions) | % Change vs. Year Ago | Unit Sales (In Millions) | % Change vs. Year Ago | |
Total Category | $3,926.8 | 1.0% | 1,723.6 | 0.2% |
All Other Fruit Juice | 75.4 | 89.0 | 18.4 | 72.9 |
Apple Juice | 8.0 | -14.4 | 4.3 | -6.3 |
Blended Fruit Juice | 206.9 | -6.8 | 81.0 | -8.2 |
Cider | 46.2 | 4.0 | 17.2 | 1.4 |
Cocktail Mixes | 0.2 | -4.9 | 0.07 | -3.8 |
Cranberry Cocktail/Drink | 4.3 | -16.6 | 1.7 | -19.4 |
Cranberry Juice/Blend | 1.2 | 8.3 | 0.3 | -8.0 |
Fruit Drink | 676.8 | 9.8 | 409.4 | 6.2 |
Fruit Nectar | 15.9 | -8.0 | 6.3 | -3.8 |
Grape Juice | 1.4 | 43.4 | 0.5 | 57.9 |
Grapefruit Cocktail/Drink | 1.3 | 19,285.6 | 0.5 | 8,425.3 |
Grapefruit Juice | 71.8 | -16.1 | 25.5 | -25.2 |
Juice and Drink Smoothies | 43.6 | 40.9 | 17.7 | 21.2 |
Lemon/Lime Juice | 5.5 | 11.0 | 4.0 | 10.8 |
Lemonade | 105.2 | 1.6 | 68.9 | 1.3 |
Orange Juice | 2,652.5 | -2.0 | 1,055.2 | -1.8 |
Pineapple Juice | 12.2 | 13.4 | 4.5 | 14.9 |
Vegetable Juice/Cocktail | 25.0 | 36.2 | 7.9 | 31.2 |
* Total sales in supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers, excluding Wal-Mart, for the 52-week period ending July 10, 2005. SOURCE: Information Resources Inc. |
TOP 10 REFRIGERATED TEA BRANDS* | |||||
$ Sales (In Millions) | % Change vs. Year Ago | Dollar Share | Unit Sales (In Millions) | % Change vs. Year Ago | |
Total Category | $158.4 | 18.1% | 100.0% | 96.6 | 13.6% |
Turkey Hill | 45.4 | 20.2 | 28.6 | 27.4 | 19.1 |
Private Label | 19.2 | 13.3 | 12.1 | 14.5 | 16.0 |
Red Diamond | 16.4 | 27.7 | 10.4 | 9.6 | 29.8 |
Bolthouse | 11.5 | 805.2 | 7.3 | 4.1 | 695.7 |
Milo’s | 9.7 | 20.8 | 6.1 | 5.2 | 23.6 |
Nestea | 8.3 | -7.1 | 5.3 | 3.9 | -5.2 |
Arizona | 6.8 | -14.4 | 4.3 | 3.3 | -16.5 |
Clover Farms | 4.1 | -19.0 | 2.6 | 2.5 | -22.2 |
Swiss Premium | 3.8 | 3.3 | 2.4 | 3.3 | -5.9 |
Galliker | 3.2 | -3.7 | 2.0 | 2.0 | -6.8 |
* Total sales in supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers, excluding Wal-Mart, for the 52-week period ending July 10, 2005. SOURCE: Information Resources Inc. |
Still, juice makers remain cautiously optimistic, as
they seek to lure back those consumers who shunned juices due to the high
carbohydrate content. “As the low-carb craze continues to fade,
consumers will come back to orange juice because it’s a product that
tastes great and has a lot of health benefits,” Schroder says.
They must be careful not to overstate those health
benefits, however. Earlier this year, Chicago-based Tropicana Products
Inc., a subsidiary of PepsiCo Inc., found itself in hot water over claims
that drinking two to three glasses of its Pure Premium Healthy Heart orange
juice each day would dramatically affect blood pressure, cholesterol and
homocysteine levels, thus reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Following a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, Tropicana agreed not
to make similar health-related claims in the future unless they were backed
up by reliable scientific evidence.
“Orange juice contains many nutrients important
to a healthy diet, and advertising can be an important source of
information about the health benefits of foods, but it is essential that
such advertising be truthful,” says Lydia Parnes, director of the
Bureau of Consumer Protection. “In this case, Tropicana’s
claims went well beyond its scientific support.”
Despite its problems with the FTC, Tropicana did
receive the stamp of approval from Weight Watchers for its Light ‘n
Healthy reduced-calorie, reduced-sugar orange juice. The global leader in
weight-loss services selected the beverage as the first juice to list its
proprietary Points® values directly on the packaging. An 8-ounce glass
of Light ‘n Healthy carries a Points value of one on the Weight
Watchers TurnAround program, compared to a Points value of two for regular
orange juice. According to Susan Learner Barr, director of program
development for Weight Watchers International Inc., the idea was to let
consumers know that they need not eliminate orange juice from their diet
just because they want to lose weight.
Innovation Injection
Chances are you won’t find too many Weight
Watchers devotees hanging around the local Dunkin’ Donuts. However,
Tropicana isn’t about to limit its focus solely on dieters. Recently,
the juice giant announced that it had teamed up with the Canton,
Mass.-based doughnut giant to produce Orange Coolatta Slush Drink.
“Partnering with Tropicana presents exciting new possibilities for
us, as we continue to strive to meet our consumers’ demand for more
flavor choices,” says John Gilbert, vice president of marketing for
Dunkin’ Donuts.
New flavor choices are also the focus of Syracuse,
N.Y.-based Byrne Dairy Inc., which is looking to expand its line beyond the
standard orange juice, lemonade, iced tea and fruit punch. According to
Annette Jim, director of marketing, the company is considering grape or
peach as its next offering.
At Langer Juice Co., meanwhile, it’s all about
pomegranate. The City of Industry, Calif.-based company has introduced a
full line of pomegranate juices, ranging from regular and diet pomegranate
juice to an assortment of blends, including pomegranate and cranberry, and
pomegranate and blueberry.
In La Farge, Wis., Organic Valley has been
experimenting with a soy-orange juice hybrid. Don’t expect to see the
product hitting the shelves anytime soon, however, as the company has yet
to do its “homework” with regards to understanding the market
for such a product, according to Teresa Marquez, chief marketing executive.
Chances are there will be a strong market for such a product, as consumer
interest in organics continues to grow, according to Marquez, who reports
that her company’s juice sales have risen 35.9 percent year-to-date.
The trend towards organic hasn’t escaped the
watchful eyes at Apple & Eve. The Port Washington, N.Y.-based company
recently introduced Apple & Eve Organics in four juice blends: Apple,
Cranberry Blueberry, Peach Mango and Vintage Concord, as well as Organic
Lemonade and Organic Lemonade with Green Tea. They are sold in 48-, 64- and
128-ounce recyclable plastic bottles at a wide variety of supermarkets and
coop advantage stores throughout the eastern United States.
Overall, refrigerated tea sales continue to soar
– up 18.1 percent in dollars and 13.6 percent in units, according to
IRI. Water sales are also greatly outpacing juices, up 18.3 percent and
10.5 percent, respectively. While a certain percentage of water drinkers
prefer straight H2O, much can be gained by giving consumers a little something extra
in their water, whether it be fruit flavoring or vitamin enhancements, says
Bruce Langer, president of Langer Juice Co.
“For many people, water can get very
boring,” he says. “They want a more interesting taste,
especially if they are consuming large quantities.”
While he declines to reveal specifics, Langer says his
company plans to have a “larger presence in the enhanced water
category” in the near future. Langer has sold California Splash
water — with a hint of fruit flavor — for the past 15 years.
Swiss Valley’s Schroder believes milk and juice
alike could take a lesson from water’s example of using packaging
innovations and branding to make a commodity product desirable.
“Water is a great example of how making a product available in
single-serve packages that are perceived as cool can really boost a
category,” he says, “where the major alternative is free and
widely available.”
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