With consumers more concerned about having a nutritious diet, it is no surprise that vending consumption patterns are following a similar trend. Consumers are willing to experiment with their taste buds and are clamoring for novelty items promising that extra nutritious kick.
MSA's study of VendScape data uncovered that the thirst for new, more nutritious items is definitely there, but the age-old adage that olds habits die hard remains true. The avid cola fan may be willing to experiment with the new genre of healthy beverages, but they haven't given up their colas.
In spite of the recent furor about sweet nothings or empty calories, the share of carbonated beverages in vending increased from 81.9 percent to 82.2 percent in 2003 compared to the previous year. However, within carbonated beverages, the diet category is increasing its hold. Cola consumers are switching from regular or nondiet to diet colas.
As a result, the nondiet segment within carbonated beverages suffered a 4 percentage point decrease compared to the previous year. The diet segment increased its dollar share by 2.6 percent compared to a year ago and jumped almost one percentage point, increasing from 16 percent to 17 percent dollar share of the total industry.
Water also continues the show growth
Another surprising finding is that consumers are preferring newer alternatives over the traditional healthy category of juice and juice drinks. In 2003, compared to the previous year, juice and juice drinks lost a combined 0.88 share points to other categories introduced within the noncarbonated
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beverage segment. In addition, water continued to show strong growth.
The overall vending industry showed a decline, but water was among those exceptional categories that experienced a positive growth in 2003 compared to 2002.
Water product offerings expand
Both beverage manufacturers and vending operators have finally tapped the opportunity in the water category, which had gone unnoticed for a long time. Now that they have identified the growing thirst for this wholesome category in vending, they are enthusiastically responding to the demand. Through aggressive acquisition, manufacturers are offering more water items in their product assortment and operators are including this category more widely in their planograms.
About 60 percent of vending machines are now selling water. In 2003, the distribution increased by nearly 2 percent from 2002.
Beverage manufacturers have also taken note of the lowered resistance to new products and are pushing new products to consumers. The manufacturers have realized that just adding new flavors is not enough.
A positive initial consumer response to recent introductions to the new beverage categories has encouraged operators to include these new alternatives in distribution. However, in the next few months and possibly even years, it will be interesting to observe how these new categories perform after the promising initial response; is it just a passing fad or, like water, is it here to stay?
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