NEW YORK -- An increasing desire by consumers for low-calorie, nutritious beverage options, coupled with major manufacturers' drives to meet those needs could add up to a banner year for bottled water in 2016.
Water is currently one of the hottest beverages in the nonalcoholic-drink market, according to a Business Insider report, with major brands like Nestle Waters North America’s Poland Spring, Coca-Cola’s Dasani and PepsiCo’s Aquafina’s volumes growing from 7% to 9% in 2014. This growth comes at the same time Coke and Pepsi's carbonated-soft-drink volumes both fell close to 3%, according to the report. And in convenience stores, bottled-water volume sales grew 17% in 2015, according to IRI, Chicago.
To manage the gap, both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. hope for "reputation makeovers" in 2016, after sugar-related/obesity concerns drove soda sales down and negative headlines up in 2015.
“We’ve had some substantial investments in R&D that have allowed us to put out more new products,” Al Carey, CEO of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, said at Beverage Digest’s Future Smarts conference, according to the report. “Not all of it is skewed toward healthy, but very much healthy and very much single-serve. And what that’s done for us is allowed us to change the mix of its portfolio.”
In the coming year, Pepsi and Coke will be all about debuting new healthy beverages, or at least brands perceived as healthier, Business Insider said. These include new, pricier takes on classic H2O.
In 2016, Pepsi is debuting new sparkling Aquafina flavored waters, while customers can expect the continued rollout of sparking Smartwater from Coca-Cola. Plus, there are more general healthy beverage innovations, like organic Gatorade, new flavors of Zico coconut water and sparkling Minute Maid juices.
Bottled water is a $13-billion business, of which Coca-Cola and PepsiCo currently only have a 13% volume share in the United States. Nestle Waters is far and away the leader with almost half of the market.
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