FUL Foods is leaning into its functional benefits and color with a rebrand that puts its hero ingredient, blue spirulina, front and center.
Launched in the U.S. last April, FUL Foods’ first attempt at a sparkling spirulina beverage, FULwater, was initially marketed as a detoxifying drink. The Dutch ingredient company’s first six months in U.S. retail revealed that putting “detox” on the can conveyed a message of bad flavor to consumers, co-founder and CEO Julia Streuli told BevNET this week.
“People often associate detox with a cleanse, with toxic diet culture, with something you have to pinch your nose to ingest,” Streuli said. “That was really going against what we wanted to convey on-pack, which is that this is a delicious hydrating beverage.”
Taking that consumer feedback (and some suggestions from a BevNET product review), FUL Foods decided to redesign its packaging, tweak the formulation and add a new tagline to tell its story better to its target consumers: “Better-for-you BLU.”
BLUwater’s three newly christened SKUs – Pink Grapefruit, White Peach and Raspberry Yuzu – hit retail shelves in late June priced between $3 to $5 per 12 oz. can depending on the channel. It is primarily being sold on the West Coast in retailers like Bristol Farms, Erewhon, Nugget and New Seasons with some distribution through foodservice channels.
FUL Foods has two primary goals with the new packaging: emphasize spirulina’s health benefits while also highlighting its environmentally sustainable production process. For starters, that meant swapping out “detox” on the front of the can in exchange for “antioxidant hydration with vitamin C”.
“Before, we were getting feedback that detox was too niche,” Streuli said. “I think when we were able to anchor it in something more established, like hydration, all of a sudden it was easier to place on-shelf and easier for consumers to understand.”
The detox callout has moved to the side of the can where it is featured with the other health and environmental benefits. The side panel includes copy explaining the sustainability of growing spirulina and, as part of its production process, the company recycles 85% of the water used to create it.
“We’ve designed our production process in a way where we’re feeding the spirulina we’re producing with CO2 that comes from other industrial waste streams,” Streuli said.
The goal is to follow the path of a lot of other functional water brands working with innovative and sometimes unfamiliar ingredients. Chlorophyll Water uses clear bottles that allow the green beverage to pop on-shelf while tailoring their marketing efforts to health-conscious consumers. Moss, along with the help of its movie star founder Michael B. Jordan, is attempting to educate consumers about the benefits of sea moss.
BLUwater has also reformulated to meet the better-for-you goals that the packaging was trying to convey. Ditching agave syrup, the reformulated BLUwater is sweetened with allulose in the Pink Grapefruit flavor and 3 grams of sugar (down from 8 grams) in an allulose and agave mix for White Peach and Raspberry Yuzu.
The Pink Grapefruit variety also originally had cucumber in the flavor profile, which was removed.
To meet that sales boost, FUL Foods has added a VP of sales, Ryan Watt, who has over 10 years experience in CPG sales working for Rumi Spice and RIND Snacks. The brand is focused on building out from the natural channel and taking the “inch wide” approach to distribution.
“The drink is one way to introduce the benefits of spirulina to people in a way that is frictionless, easy to consume and delivered through a product that tastes great,” Streuli said.