Performance beverage-makers tailor offerings to everyday consumers

Beverage brands continue to blur the lines between categories which has fostered hybridization and cross-category experimentation, Glanbia’s Max Maxwell says. (Image courtesy of Liv Tru) Between working, exercising, cooking healthy meals and maintaining a social life, consumers have a lot on their plates when it comes to living a healthy and balanced life. As a result, many are turning to sports and performance beverages to help them keep up with the demand of their everyday lives. To fulfill this need state, beverage-makers are developing new products in the name of sports and performance. For instance, 269 new sports and performance beverages were launched in 2018, states New York-based Nielsen in a December 2018 Insights titled “Tops of 2018: Non-Alcoholic Beverage Innovation.” According to a Nielsen Innovation Measurement Profiler survey, 1,163 of respondents said they were trying new beverages as a way to more actively manage their health and wellness. The performance beverage category is helping consumers manage their health and consume cleaner products. “Similar to other [consumer packaged goods] CPG categories, the performance beverage category has been impacted consumers’ increased preference for transparency,” says Max Maxwell, manager of market intelligence at Glanbia Nutritionals LLC, Chicago. “This demand for transparency has taken various forms, with some consumers preferring a reduced number of ingredients on the label while others want to know where each ingredient comes from or how it’s made,” he continues. Greg Robertson, head of natural performance ingredients at Döehler North America, Cartersville, Ga., also highlights how transparency is impacting the performance beverage category. “Part of the wellness trend includes the use of more authentic and ‘real’ ingredients versus the synthetic and/or overly processed compounds often found in traditional energy and performance beverages today,” he explains. “This [can] include the use of botanical extracts that contain ‘naturally occurring caffeine’ […]

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