Mintel sees promise in private brand beverages
Research and market insights firm Mintel sees big potential in beverages, highlighting key examples from around the world. Trends include premium alcohol brands, refillable beverage stations and revamped packaging within the category.
Jonny Forsyth, associate director, Mintel food and drink, shared recent innovations to come out of the beverage category, and in a Mintel blog post, called on boosted investment in private label drinks, saying, “there is clear consumer demand for private label drinks that are premium and innovative at a reasonable price.” He noted the strength of the category isn’t in imitating national brands but actually rolling out better-quality drinks.
On Sept. 29, Store Brands is hosting a virtual forum on beverages, including four panels on alcohol trends, nonalcoholic beverage innovations, the dairy and non-dairy segment, and coffee and tea. The Store Brands Industry Forum on Beverages will include speakers from Boxed, Casey’s, The Giant Company, Rouse’s Market, TXB and Walgreens. Register here.
The event will cover the growth of the category, pandemic supply chain challenges and innovations.
Examples of innovation to come out of the Mintel blog include the potential growth of more refillable beverage stations, highlighting Waitrose, a U.K. retailer, that expanded its refill station two years ago, particularly in an effort to build out its broad private brand coffee and tea selection.
The blog also put emphasis on premium, both in high-quality tasting products to stand out in a crowded category, but also within its packaging. Forsyth in the Mintel blog said consumers are open-minded to an affordable luxury. This mindset surely translates to alcohol where an Aldi Spiced Gin out of Australia ranked high among consumers the firm surveyed. Mintel Purchase Intelligence said nearly a quarter of Australians see the private brand gin as “good value,” compared with 17% for all new gin launches, per the blog.
Aldi in the U.K. also stood out for its craft beer portfolio and Target in the United States stood out with a line of hard seltzers to innovate in alcohol.
Read the complete blog post here.