Rising sales are never a bad thing, but not all revenues are created equal. And with pricing continuing to climb against meager volume gains – and coming against the backdrop of warnings about persistent inflation this year – how concerned should we all be? Overall, non-alcoholic beverage sales were up 4.8% in the four-week period ended March 8, during which volume grew 2% and pricing gained 2.8%.
Let’s break down some of the numbers from Goldman Sachs latest analysis of NielsenIQ data through March 8.
Spark of Life? As Liquid Death has expanded into categories like iced tea and flavored sparkling water, has that taken some of the shine off its core water business? Volume was down 9.6% in the two-weeks (compared to -3% in the four-weeks and -8.1% for the 52-weeks) against a 5.6% decline in sales and 2.2% drop in pricing.
- Yet LD sparkling is surging, gaining 41.7% volume and 40.4% dollar sales in the four-weeks (+31.9% in the two-weeks) against a 0.9% pricing drop.
Pepsi Portfolio Pops. Pepsi believes that Poppi is worth paying $1.65 billion for, and, to be fair, the brand is performing up to that billing. Volume soared 100% in the four-weeks (before coming down to around 79% for the two-weeks) against a price drop of 5.7%; a stat line of +118% sales/+116% volume/+0.9 pricing (52-weeks) will definitely get you noticed.
- Pepsi’s other big beverage bet – via distribution partner Celsius – hit a snag, though, with 4.8% drops in both sales and volume over the four-week period.
- Excluding Celsius, Pepsi’s energy drink portfolio (mainly Rockstar) reported a volume plunge of just over 20% in the four weeks.
Coffee, Sports Drinks Slide. It’s ironic that these two categories should stand out for lacking energy and stamina over the last month or so. For sports drinks, PRIME’s continued crash (-57% volume in the last four weeks) has sparked category-wise malaise to the tune of -11.9% volume/-6.7% sales/+5.7% pricing in the last four weeks – though Electrolit has been happy to gobble up gains for itself.
As for coffee, a segment already stretched by soaring commodity prices, the category numbers – +4.5% pricing/-9.6% volume/-5.6% sales over the last four weeks – don’t exactly spell optimism.