Consumers looking to get their vegetables on the go could be contributing to the success of vegetable juice sales, as this segment saw a dramatic increase in dollar sales and units. Some of the popular juice segments, like cranberry, grape and orange struggled.

Rising above all its juice counterparts, the vegetable juice/cocktail segment saw dollar sales jump 28.8% to $76.8 million and units were up 34.8% to 19.2 million, in the 52 weeks ended Jan. 26, 2014, according to data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), Chicago. 

In the same time period, the refrigerated juices/drinks category saw a 1.7% increase in dollar sales to $6.6 billion, with units also up 2.5% to 2.3 billion. The shelf-stable juice/drink concentrate category showed numbers way up — dollar sales rose 30.3% to $51.5 million and units were up 18.3% to 12.5 million. The aseptic juice category saw minimal change, with dollar sales down 1.7% to $1.5 billion and units up a slight 0.3% to 574.9 million.

The top five dollar sales leaders in the refrigerated juices/drinks category are:

• Orange juice ($3.4 billion; units down 1.1%)
• Refrigerated fruit drink ($1 billion; units down 0.4%)
• Refrigerated juice and drink smoothies ($784.9 million; units up 18.1%)
• Refrigerated lemonade ($534.5 million; units up 2.8%)
• Refrigerated blended fruit juice ($372.2 million; units up 20.8%)

The cranberry juice/cranberry juice blend segment struggled with sales the most — dollar sales were down 38.3% and units dropped 42.4%. Also struggling, the orange juice and grape juice segments — dollar sales dropped 2.5% and 24.8%, respectively, and units fell 1.1% and 16.3%, respectively. The fruit drink segment, which had $1 billion in overall sales, struggled to see numbers go up. The dollar sales dropped 3.3% and units fell 0.4%.

Some juice segments did see successful increases, including the blended options. The juice and drink smoothies segment saw dollar sales go up 22.6% to $784.9 million, units went up 18.1%. In the blended fruit juice segment, dollar sales rose 17.3% to $372.2 million, and units went up 20.8%. Also doing well, the “all other fruit juice” segment’s dollar sales rose 4.1% to $77.7 million and units jumped 24.7%.

 Meanwhile, two popular drinks stayed in the middle of the pack — the lemonade segment’s dollar sales went up 2.7% to $534.5 million, and units were up 2.8% to 255 million; while the apple juice segment showed dollar sales up slightly at 1.4% to $61.9 million and units also up 1% to 24.3 million.