Depending on one's
age, one probably remembers summer vacation
trips in the family car, Management
Science Associates' Dawn-Michele Moros
pointed out. Long spells of tedium were
relieved by stops in rest areas which almost
always featured a cold drink vending
machine.
Those who had this experience in the
1940s and '50s remember machines delivering
(or allowing the user to retrieve) glass bottles,
and recall opening them with a tool attached
to the machine front. For more than
three decades thereafter, the traveler was refreshed
by a cold drink in a 12-fl.oz. can.
Whatever the package, though, the choices
were limited – "You got a soft drink, or nothing
at all," Moros recalled.
Nowadays, those who have graduated from
station wagon passengers to sport utility vehicle
drivers with their own passengers
aboard find a much more diverse selection of
vended cold drinks at the roadside rest stop.
The familiar colas are still there, and some
new ones have been added – and they often
are provided in 20-fl.oz. PET bottles. But we
also have "sports drinks" (formerly enjoyed
exclusively by athletes), bottled water (those
of a certain age cannot quite get used to buying
packaged water), teas in a bewildering assortment
of flavors and styles, juices and
juice drinks, and a whole new range of "energy
drinks" that may boost our energy, enhance
our mood or even sharpen our memory.
There are so many choices that it may be
difficult to get back on the road, the MSA researcher
quipped.
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Moros explained that, in an attempt to impose
some order on this proliferation of beverages,
the industry has defined categories to
describe them: soft drinks, tea, juice/juice
drinks, sports drinks, milk/dairy, water, and
miscellaneous drinks. Beverages once available
only to professional athletes – isotonics,
or sports drinks – and to the elite (small-package
bottled water) now are offered to vending
machine shoppers in all walks of life, and in
locations of all sorts. Of course, specific categories
may fit especially well in a particular
kind of location.
Over the past 10 years, traditional soft
drinks have shown less growth than "alternative"
beverages, although the classic soft
drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola continue
to dominate the cold drink market.
What are these alternative beverage choices,
and how have consumer preferences
changed?
Chart 1 shows the percentage of packaged
cold beverage machines offering soft drinks,
water, juice/juice drinks, tea and sports
drinks, as those percentages evolved over
eleven quarters (13-week periods) between
May, 2000 and February, 2003. It shows that
the percentage of machines stocked with alternative
beverages has been increasing.
Although soft drinks still have the greatest
distribution, bottled water (in particular) has
grown steadily over the last two years, from
a distribution of less than 10% to over 50%
in 2003. Alternative beverages now account
for nearly 20% of total cold drink consumption
(see Chart 2).
Of course, purchase preference varies
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among the alternative beverage categories.
Water and juices/juice drinks, with shares
of 32.36% and 33.35% respectively, currently
are the most popular alternatives
(see Chart 3).
Based on the "VendScape" sample of 38
operators and more than 27,000 active cold
beverage machines, Moros pointed out, the
share increase for the alternative beverage
group is driven by the number of new brands
and the increased number of machines offering
these products (see Chart 4). During the
past two years, bottled water's share-of-beverage
grew by 11%, and this category has
been the catalyst for the growth of alternative
beverages in vending.
In turn, the continuing growth of cold
drink vending overall has been affected by the
ever-widening array of choices offered to the
consumer through other retail channels. In
2001, there were 52 new brands introduced to
the vending market; 35 of them were in the
juice/juice drink category. In 2002, 66 new
brands were introduced; nearly two-thirds of
them were soft drinks.
While consumers enjoy more choices today,
and preferences have varied over the past
few years, water is the only alternative beverage
that has maintained its share growth.
Among other things, this tells us that today's
vacationing motorists are most likely to purchase
either a soft drink or water.
Information on "VendScape" data may be
had by calling MSA's Dawn-Michele Moros
at (412) 362-2000.
"VendScape" is a trademark of Validata
Computer & Research (Montgomery, AL).
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