News

You’ve a got a great new product, and you think it’s ready for distribution. But how does your brand find its way into a distributor’s portfolio? In this segment featured on BeverageSchool.com, Debbie Wildrick, a 23 year veteran of the beverage industry with executive roles at 7-Eleven and PepsiCo, talks about the importance of having a product that fills an unmet need in the market, and a thoroughly planned marketing and sales strategy as the best ways for a brand to find distribution.

While pricing remains muted, the carbonated soft drink category continued to slide with sales declining by 2.4 percent in a year-over-year comparison for the four weeks ending on October 27, according to Nielsen Scantrack Enhanced FDMx data released in a new report from Morgan Stanley. Yet while CSDs remain on a downward slope, the hottest category in beverages remains energy with category sales up 12.4 percent compared over the same timeframe last year.

Calling it a "new direction" for the company, Mexican beverage marketer Novamex has launched Alova, a new all-natural, sparkling aloe vera drink. Novemex, which produces and sells a range of Mexican-inspired drinks including Jarritos soft drinks and Mineragua water, has gradually expanded its footprint in the U.S. and will look to Alova as a point of entry into the natural channel via growing consumer exposure of aloe and its aura of health and wellness.

Here’s the issue: GNC is a well-known retailer, but the process of rolling a beverage brand licensed from GNC into other stores presented a bit of a design problem for Shadow Beverage and Snacks, the company that licensed the right to develop the drinks. To begin with, there’s complexity – the company envisioned three kinds of products—an enhanced water, a sports drink, and a protein drink – covering both the average, aspirational grocery consumer and the highly involved athletic achiever.