Consumers justify the premiums for healthy and convenient options

The total soft drinks market is up 6.3% year-on-year (Nielsen, Total Coverage, One Shot Soft Drinks, 52 weeks to 11 June 2011) with all sectors except cola in growth.

Current trends offer a huge opportunity to drive chilled juice, encouraging people to trade up and hence drive increased value into the soft drinks category.

Consumers remain focused on health with 35% making a conscious effort to eat more healthily. The range of not-from-concentrate juice we launched in January offers consumers an opportunity to get one of their five-a-day, while our smoothies continue to enjoy a unique position offering two fruit portions per serving. The success of our juice range shows that consumers continue to justify the premiums for "healthy", "wholesome" and "convenient" options. This is reflected in the performance of the chilled juice category, which is the fastest growing sector within the convenience soft drinks category (Nielsen, Convenience, Value Sales, 52 weeks to 11 June 2011).

With the strong performance of the category and the current macro trends it is important operators give sufficient space to chilled juice within their soft drinks fixture and ensure the top selling lines from both juice and smoothies are always available.

Chris Chandler, commercial manager, Innocent Drinks