16/04/13

In its introduction to its latest report – “Fruit and Vegetable Juices: US Market Trends” – Packaged Facts notes that, as they reject the traditional, consumers are embracing new juices and juice drinks with wildly innovative forms and flavours. Many of the products achieving the highest growth rates are those riding the wave of trends and fads driven by juice bars and smoothie chains that have had a seemingly overnight impact on the tastes of health-obsessed juice consumers.

When defined in terms of overall dollar sales and volume consumption, the market for fruit juices and juice drinks has remained remarkably stable for years. Packaged Facts estimates that between 2007 and 2012 dollar sales of fruit and vegetable juices and juice drinks barely budged and that the volume of juice and juice drinks consumed by households hardly kept up with population growth.

Yet, underneath its apparently placid surface, the market for juices and drinks has seen undercurrents of constant, unpredictable change. Traditional consumption patterns are rapidly changing as consumers continue to turn away from classic products such as frozen orange juice. For example, between 2007 and 2012, the consumption of orange juice declined by 3.6%. Frozen orange juice experienced an especially significant decline (-14.7%).

As a result, says Packaged Facts, the market for packaged fruit and vegetable juices has been upended. No longer do consumers need to frequent juice bars or natural and specialty gourmet retail channels to find novel blends and flavours. They only need to cruise the aisles and perimeter of their nearest supermarket to find a wide range of cutting-edge products such as exotic blends of fruit juices, unexpected combinations of fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, coconut water, aloe vera juice, and juices made from mysterious, antioxidant-rich “superfruits.”

The new Packaged Facts report analyses how the fruit and vegetable juice market has evolved into its current configuration and identifies what marketers need to do to stay on top of even more challenging changes in the future. The report pays particular attention to the competitive threats facing marketers of packaged juices and highlights how they can take advantage of emerging market opportunities.

Fruit and Vegetable Juices: U.S. Market Trends identifies a number of factors that are likely to lead to accelerating growth in a market that has showed little momentum in recent years. First, it is likely that the increase in the number of large households as a result of the rise in the population of multicultural consumers will have a disproportionate impact upon growth in the overall market for juices and juice drinks. Furthermore, Packaged Facts anticipates that there will be an intensive effort on the part of juice marketers to respond to consumer concerns about the high sugar content of their products by introducing a broader array of low-calorie products based on safe alternatives to sugar. It is also expected that marketers will continue to innovate and launch new, premium, high-profit, better-for-you juice products that attract health-conscious Millennials and Boomers seeking out the latest flavour fad.