Convenience fuel – essential soft drinks

6 May 2013

Red Bull says sports and energy drinks, particularly functional energy drinks, are fuelling soft drinks sales. Have plenty of Irn-Bru to go, advises brand owner AG Barr.

Though growth has slowed compared to the stellar performance of last year, soft drinks still provide massive turnover for c-stores

AS the figures quoted in this issue of Scottish Grocer’s soft drinks report show, soft drinks is a huge consumer goods category by any definition – worth almost £10bn in the UK in total.
C-stores take an important share of that, almost £1.8bn in the UK.
Coca-Cola Enterprises says there’s is a clear core range that retailers should ensure they are getting right. Colas, flavoured carbonates, energy drinks, juices and juice drinks and waters should be the core component of any store’s soft drinks category, it argues.
But the firm reckons that these days the retailer will also have to understand pack formats, mission management and promotions to get the most from soft drinks.
The majority of consumers purchasing soft drinks in the impulse channel are looking for an immediate consumption format – principally, 330ml cans and 500ml bottles, said CCE.

A bottle of the biggest soft drink brand in the world and it’s got your name on it. Over the summer, more than 1bn packs of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero in Europe will carry consumer names .

But the economic downturn means that people are increasingly opting for nights in with friends and family. For retailers, this translates into a growing need to stock some take-home and multi-pack options alongside impulse sizes.
At energy drink leader Red Bull the company’s trade communication manager stresses the importance of the sports and energy sub-category to soft drinks growth. “Sports and energy is expected to deliver 50% of soft drinks growth, delivering an additional £338m by 2017,” he said.

In impulse in Scotland sports and energy is the largest segment in soft drinks with 30% share of the market and within that the top 20 SKUs deliver 72% of value sales and so should take prime positions and space, he argued.
AG Barr advises c-store retailers to give prominence to Irn-Bru which it says is the biggest drink-now brand in Scottish impulse.
Consumers are heavily inclined to buy Irn-Bru for consumption on the go and retailers should use its 250ml, 330ml, 500ml and 750ml formats as “beacon brands” on the fixture, said Adrian Troy, head of marketing for AG Barr.