The granddaddy of the sports-drink category is pushing forward with plans to introduce "G Series," a grouping of three product categories, while giving another facelift to its core product lines.
The company plans to offer three types [image-nocss] of products, including two new beverages, according to the report. New products will include Prime, which will be sold in 4-ounce pouches and come in three flavors. Prime is meant to be consumed just before exercise and includes carbohydrates, sodium and potassium. Recover, another new product, is meant to be used after exercise and will be sold in 16.9-oz. bottles, with three flavors and 16 grams of whey protein. Products to be consumed during exercise include the existing Thirst Quencher and G2 beverage lines.
"The whole sport-drink category was invented by Gatorade. The time has come for us to get back to meaningful innovation for the category," Massimo d'Amore, CEO of PepsiCo's Americas Beverages group, said at the Beverage Digest Future Smarts conference in New York, according to AdAge. "For too long [the category] has relied on flavor extensions. It's time to really reset the clock, and that's what we're trying to do in 2010."
As part of the new product introduction, the core Thirst Quencher and G2 lines will also receive another facelift, the second in just over a year. D'Amore said the new packaging would be "more functional." The redesigned graphics will more prominently feature a low-calorie message for the G2 brand, which will have its calories reduced to 20 per 8-oz. serving, from 25. A spokesman declined to comment on the redesign of the Thirst Quencher products beyond saying that the brand is committed to G, the logo it introduced last year, according to the report.
Meanwhile, bottled water sales, which experienced rapid growth for more than a decade before beginning to sag in 2008, could see a renaissance in 2010, according to a report on Investopedia.com.
Growth rates have slowed in recent years, due to market saturation, according to the report, and have taken a more recent tumble on environmental concerns that millions of plastic bottles enter landfills every day because only a small proportion of them ever reach recycling bins. Plus, why ship water across the globe when it can be consumed from a local tap?
But a shift back to bottled water may take place soon following a recent New York Times study that reported "more than 20% of the nation's water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years," according to the Investopedia report.
The Times also reported that "since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage."
Thus, Investopedia reported, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, with their respective bottled-water brands of Aquafina and Dasani, and Nestle Waters with its numerous brands may again see a boost to these brands if health concerns continue to plague local utility water sources.
This would also benefit their bottlers. Pepsi is in the process of acquiring two of its largest bottlers, while Coca-Cola Bottling and Coca-Cola Enterprises will remain somewhat independent of Coca Cola.
"It remains to be seen if the current Times study leads to another consumer backlash," write analyst Ryan Fuhrmann on Investopedia, "but it may prove enough to stem the current unpopularity of bottled water."
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.