The Beverage Industry is the place to be!

Copyright © Jorge Olson 2006

Everyone likes to have a drink in their hand. No matter if it’s early in the morning or late at night, people like to be able to have something to drink. With this never ending demand, manufacturers have begun to see the value in appeasing the masses with a wide variety of beverages for any time of day.

For the morning hours, people need beverages that are easy to grab and go. This is why the coffee industry has become so popular and doesn’t seem to slow down over the years. Things like coffee and tea are still the number one beverages in the country, so trends that focus on this fact tend to be successful. The latest trends include drinks that have more caffeine than the normal cup of coffee to give the drinker a bigger jolt of energy when they are getting their day started. There are also many beverages that can be bought from a local grocery store that are the same formulations of store bought drinks, allowing the drinker to skip the daily waiting in line – things like the Starbucks Frappucino and espresso are now coming in bottles and cans in order to be more convenient for customers.

Starbucks is a great example of how to corner a market. They have their own coffee shops, they sell their brand of coffee in supermarkets so you can make a great Starbucks cup at home, they have cold coffee drinks not only in their own shops but in supermarkets through a partnership with Pepsi Co., and I even saw a Starbucks in the Vons (Safeway) supermarket across the street from my house; if you ever though of launching your own beverage you rarely do any better than this with marketing, sales, business development and branding.

Customers are also looking for ways to shave time off their mornings, so some manufacturers have found that creating smoothies and drinkable yogurts are a good way to appease their consumer markets. By giving customers the option of drinking their breakfast on the way to work, they are allowing customers to feel healthier and get that most important meal of the day. This segment of the market is growing quickly and mixing with technology as you will start to see more drinks with a longer shelf space. I already found several milk products with a shelf life of up to 1 year.

Later in the day when energy is waning, consumers are looking for an added advantage over others. With drinks that include focus enhancing chemicals as well as memory boosting ingredients, consumers don’t have to head to the vending machine for a snack – they can drink what their body needs and start to get their vitality back. Other consumers also like the idea that some new beverages give them the vitamins and minerals that their body is using up when they are stressed out. This launched one of the fastest growing categories, the Energy Drink, growing at about 70% per year. Brands like Monster Energy from Hansen’s, Rockstar Energy, Red Bull and Pepsi’s Sobe dominate the market.

If someone needs something specific, there are ingredient- and flavor-enhanced beverages for every need. From focus to energy, weight loss to immune system boosting, these beverage trends are all the more popular as the society remains as busy and as productive as even. This is part of the New Age Beverage Category that includes energy drinks, vitamin waters, flavored waters and more. Companies like Glaceau with their Vitamin Water, Red Bull, Fuze, Sobe, Jones Soda, and others are the leaders with many new companies and new types of beverages emerging every week.

Beverages are hot, especially new companies in new beverages. What will be the next big boom? Water… Bottled water is big in the USA but it will get much bigger. We will start mimicking Europe and their tradition of bottled mineral water where we’ll buy cases of mineral water to keep in the house instead of 5 gallon containers or tap water.
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Jorge Olson is a consultant for Liquid Brands Management, Inc. He helps companies launch, market and sell beverages all over the USA and Mexico. You can find him at www.LiquidBrandsManagement.com.