Despite already brimming with competitors panning for gold, the flavored sparkling water category is having no trouble attracting new prospectors.
CG Roxane is the latest name in the mix, as the California-based family-owned water company introduces a flavored sparkling line under its flagship brand Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water. The five SKUs — Cherry, Lime, Orange, Lemon and unflavored Sparkling — launch today in 24-packs on Amazon and in 6-packs ($3.49 SRP) of 16.9 oz PET bottles at select retailers in the Northeast. Bottles will feature 50% rPET sourced from CG Roxane-owned plastic recycling plants in Benton, Tenn.
The launch is a natural opportunity to leverage the well-known Crystal Geyser name in an adjacent space with high consumer demand, explained Jordan Nelson, VP of Sales.
Crystal Geyser’s bottled waters generated over $395 million in sales in the 52 week period ended April 5, per Nielsen IQ data, a 1% decline from year prior. Similar to its core spring waters — where 40-packs and other large configurations regularly do the heavy sales lifting — Crystal Geyser Sparkling is aiming for value; the line is exclusively in multipacks aimed at grocery accounts (Pete’s Market) through wholesale distributors. The Northeast launch will be complemented by a marketing campaign that’s “dialed into the marketplace,” Nelson added.
“It’s broadening an already very valued portfolio and offering consumers one more item that they’ve been asking us for for quite some time,” said Nelson.
Flavor Reigns
Crystal Geyser may not be a first-mover in flavored sparkling, but they picked a pretty good time to join. Per Circana data through March 21, the sparkling seltzer market grew 9.3% year-over-year, outpacing both flavored still water (+8.9%) and non-flavored sparkling water (+7.6%) during that period.
But even with a single dominant billion-dollar brand – Sparkling Ice – there’s been room for a handful of companies to lay their own claims to the space: names like Bubbl’r (+38.7%), Liquid Death (+41.8%) and Waterloo (+30.6%) have each found paths to $100 million-plus in revenue through bold flavor, branding, or added benefits like caffeine.
On retail shelves, sparkling waters still present a different consumer proposition and merchandising opportunity than other carbonated drinks, but maybe not as much as they used to. Two of the biggest flavored sparkling water success stories of the past decade — juice-infused Spindrift and Sparkling Ice, which uses natural and artificial flavors — are now also in the soda business thanks to booming interest in modern soft drinks. Other adjacencies like sparkling tea, adult non-alcoholic drinks and zero-calorie kombucha are also encroaching; in the case of Maison Perrier’s recent launch of mocktail flavors, the connection is explicit.
But major brands still have cards to play: see Coca-Cola, which has leveraged Topo Chico’s cult status to successfully push into zero-calorie and lightly sweetened flavored versions of its signature sparkling mineral water.
There’s also Primo Brands, which introduced its Splash Refresher Sparkling line in 12 oz cans earlier this month with a celebrity-driven marketing campaign; Splash also comes in a bottled non-carbonated version. Primo’s portfolio already includes flavored waters from Poland Spring, acquired through its merger with BlueTriton Brands last year. With Nestle Waters shopping its sparkling powerhouses Perrier and San Pellegrino amidst cost cuts, Primo is on a short list of viable potential buyers.
This article has been updated.