In its ongoing mission to be the leading premium sparkling water brand on the market, Spindrift is going hard.
The Newton, Massachusetts-based beverage brand announced today the launch of Spindrift Spiked, an alcoholic hard seltzer line rolling out to stores next month. Following the brand’s core products, the new line is made with real fruit juice and contains alcohol fermented from cane sugar with a 4% ABV.
The drinks are available in Mango, Lime, Pineapple and Half & Half (lemonade and tea) flavors. Each 12 oz. can contains 82 to 95 calories. The products will be sold in variety 12-packs for $25. The company will donate 1% of all sales as part of its commitment to environmental campaign 1% For The Planet.
Spindrift has seen high, double-digit growth in the past year, up 78.9% to $77.7 million in the 52-week period ending February 20, according to market research firm Nielsen. In that time, the non-alcoholic sparkling water category has grown 22.8% to $3.3 billion, while the hard seltzer space has grown to $4.1 billion, per NielsenIQ. According to Spindrift founder and CEO Bill Creelman, the combined categories are expected to surpass $15 billion in retail by the end of 2022.
While hard seltzer is a crowded category largely dominated by a few brands, namely White Claw and Truly, Creelman said he sees the space as an extension of the overall sparkling water space where Spindrift has been able to carve out market share as a premium alternative to the leading brands.
“Sparkling water is the most important category in beverage in our lifetimes,” Creelman said. “Whereas flavored sparkling water was sort of where it started as the domain of carbonation lovers fleeing soda, we really see that as alcohol coming into sparkling water. You have, in the case of Spindrift, this profile of low calorie, really delicious, two ingredient product and the consumer is not willing to compromise anymore.”
Spindrift, Creelman said, is orienting itself to be a “total sparkling water company,” playing in all areas of the category. Last month, the company launched a line of lemonade sparkling waters, the first time in the brand’s history it unveiled a full subline.
To stand apart from Spindrift’s core line, Spiked is packaged in slim cans and features numerous callouts on the packaging to its alcohol content. Creelman said the company aimed to develop a package that is “very distinctly Spindrift” while also feeling different than its current product.
Spindrift Spiked aims to differentiate itself from competing hard seltzers much in the same way Spindrift’s flagship products set themselves apart from the sea of naturally flavored sparkling waters: through the use of real fruit juice and no artificial ingredients. The liquid is colorful, unlike nearly all other hard seltzers which are clear, and the packaging and marketing call out its clean ingredient label.
Creelman said that the company expects to draw early sales for Spiked from its existing consumer base, which it has tapped for feedback through its Drifter newsletter program and social media channels. While brands like White Claw and Truly may have carved out the bulk of the market share for hard seltzer to date, Creelman said Spindrift Spiked is targeting consumers who have yet to enter the category. Spindrift’s consumers, he noted, “overwhelmingly” requested the brand introduce a hard product, however, only 15% had even tried hard seltzers in the past — let alone on a regular basis.
Sales of Spindrift’s core line, Creelman said, are 90% incremental to the sparkling water category, a point that the company hopes to duplicate in the alcohol space.
“Among our followers, almost none of them drink hard sparkling water today,” Creelman said. “They’ve told us that there’s not a product that they really identify with out in the market. So this is our opportunity to offer that.”
Spiked will launch mid-April in the Northeast and in Southern California. To support the rollout, Spindrift has partnered with California-based Stone Brewing and Massachusetts-based alcohol wholesalers Horizon Beverage Group to handle distribution.
While many hard seltzer plays from established brands have come through partnerships with strategics — including AriZona and Heineken USA, Topo Chico and Molson Coors Beverage Company and Polar Seltzer and Harpoon — Creelman said the company has opted to handle the venture itself and plans to “engage in a small, but deep way in the market.” Creelman himself is no stranger to the alcohol space, either: he co-founded mixer brand Stirrings prior to launching Spindrift in 2010.
As the line rolls out, Creelman said the company’s strategy is multi-pronged. First, Spindrift aims to launch Spiked in its existing accounts which also carry alcoholic beverages, including upwards of 2,500 accounts in the Massachusetts and Rhode Island area. Creelman himself said he will be driving around personally, much as he did when the brand first launched 11 years ago, to meet with accounts and sell the line. The company will also gauge interest from its national accounts prior to expanding outside of the test markets.
“There’s going to be no point in time, going forward, where consumers are going to be willing to go back to putting lots of sugar or chemicals into their bodies,” he said. “So while spiked sparkling water sits in a different part of the store and it’s distributed very differently, from a consumer standpoint, they don’t see it that way. They have made a decision, many years ago, that they’re not going to put soda in the middle of the table anymore. And now they’re making that decision when it comes to hard sparkling water.”