Suja rode the surge in pantry stocking this spring, as well as the subsequent drop off in early Q3; now the brand is heading into this fall with the wind at its back.
The California-based cold-pressed juice maker’s strong performance over the course of the last 12 months — dollar sales of its refrigerated organic fruit drinks across MULO plus-convenience were up 517% to $18.6 million through August 18, according to IRI — is a welcome sign for both the brand and the cold pressed juice category as a whole. After several years in decline, juice has staged something of a comeback in recent months: refrigerated fruit drink sales are up 7.4% through August 18, while refrigerated juice overall is up 7.7%.
According to Suja CMO Greg Rose, Suja experienced the same whiplash as many other food and beverage brands over the course of spring and summer: having taken momentum from 2019 into the early part of this year, the company was hit first by a surge in demand in March and April, followed by sudden drop, followed finally by a move back into growth. Thanks in part to that early spike in demand, Rose said Suja’s total business across all formats has increased “between 30% and 40%” this year to $90 million.
That’s been helped by a product shift: much of the growth, Rose said, has come from its line of 2 oz. cold pressed juice shots, which launched in July 2018. The format — which, like cold pressed juice, was once viewed as appealing to only a niche demographic — has emerged as the tip of the spear for the brand, driving significant growth across all channels, where it has joined a cohort of fast-rising upstarts like Vive Organic and KOR. Suja markets six varieties of shots, each highlighted by the addition of natural functional ingredients that consumers have grown familiar with in recent years, including ginger, turmeric, probiotics and reishi mushroom.
Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Rose described as “an inflection point” for consumers in terms of evaluating their health and habits, the shot format ticks a range of relevant boxes. In line with rising interest in products with “immunity” callouts, Suja features two such SKUs — Immunity Defense, with turmeric and probiotics, and Immunity Rebound, with elderberry and probiotics — that have been its most popular.
At retail, Rose said strong velocities for juice shots, priced at $2.99 each, have helped encourage retailers to expand shelf space in juice coolers, or explore new placements closer to point-of-sale. But e-commerce may be the channel having the biggest impact for Suja: since bringing direct-to-consumer shipping back in May, shots have been the company’s exclusive online offering.
Shots’ small format helps to solve part of the margin challenge created when shipping refrigerated products across the country, and, combined with its positioning as a daily use product, the brand has found a customer base that is willing to pay a premium for the convenience of direct shipping in bulk quantities. Adapting its marketing to fit the channel, the brand developed an immunity shot variety pack (which includes Defense and Rebound as well as Vitamin C, made with acerola cherry juice) specifically for online shoppers, available in sizes ranging from 20-packs to 90-packs.
Rose said that focusing on moving shots through e-commerce is simply better economics for Suja, particularly when consumers are willing to make bulk purchases. While welcoming the newfound growth in the channel, however, he noted that building direct-to-consumer sales remains behind continued retail growth and expanding in online grocery in the company’s list of priorities.
“I would say that it’s not like some businesses where you either innovate or die,” he said. “We’ve got such good momentum at retail that we will be in good shape. Online is an incremental opportunity, and also a way to engage with our most loyal and passionate consumers, who also are the ones who buy in bulk.”
On the other side of the size spectrum, growth in multi-serve bottles has helped Suja offset declines in single-serve products, and in turn shifted how the brand is optimizing its marketing strategy. Rose described multi-serve cold pressed juice — of which Suja’s offerings include five varieties in 46 oz. bottles, each with a suggested retail price of $9.99 — as a “big untapped opportunity,” particularly as stores struggle to recover some of the consistent on-the-go and with-lunch use occasions they previously relied upon. While retailers are making more space for shots, real estate on-shelf for multi-serve is limited to cooler wells which can’t be expanded as easily. Instead, Suja is focusing on adding more points of distribution and taking more dollar share of the category.
“From a marketing and promotions standpoint, our biggest focus had been single-serve, but that shifted pretty significantly this year,” he said. “We realized that there’s a greater opportunity to get after both and that they are largely incremental to each other, just different occasions.”
So where does that leave single-serve juice? According to Rose, Suja’s priority for that format is driving online grocery sales through Instacart and other fulfillment platforms. Outside of channel strategy, however, the brand is going back to what it does best: launching new innovations. The first is a line of sparkling cold pressed juices in 12 oz. PET bottles. The product will be launching in four flavors — Strawberry Passionfruit, Grapefruit Citrus, Blueberry Ginger and Pineapple Orange, all of which contain between 25% and 50% of the daily recommended value of Vitamin C — that the brand hopes will unlock new use occasions like meal pairing and light refreshment. The sparkling juice line began rolling out nationwide at Target this month, with major retailers including Kroger and H-E-B set to follow starting next month, with a suggested retail price of $3.99 each.
“Part of the excitement is that people can see multiple use occasions for this,” he said. “That’s different from cold pressed juice, which hits a lot more towards morning occasions. We’re seeing that it could potentially bring new users to the category that are just not going to drink an earthy green juice. It’s not going to go full mainstream, but it definitely will have more of a taste appeal for some consumers.”
With clear paths laid out for shots, single-serve and multi-serve juice, Suja is positioning itself to reap the rewards of consumers’ rising interest in health and wellness beverages in the wake of COVID-19. Under the leadership of Bob De Borde, a Coca-Cola veteran who was elevated from interim to permanent CEO at Suja this year, following Jeff Church’s departure in summer 2019, the brand is seeking to consolidate and solidify its place within a juice market that has seen new players emerge and longtime pillar brands — such as Bolthouse Farms and Odwalla, a Coca-Cola-backed juice venture like Suja — struggle or collapse altogether.
“What we are seeing is that this year is an inflection point for a lot of consumers in which they are reevaluating their health and what they eat, and they have more time to prepare and be more thoughtful and proactive,” he said. “Our household penetration has grown significantly this year I think in part due to that. People are trying to stay healthy so they are exploring categories, so that’s been a big help for our business.”
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Suja was owned outright by The Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola is retains a minority stake in the company. The article has been updated.