SKU proliferation no stranger to beverage market

Instant.ly helps beverage-makers follow the competition

With changes coming so fast, it can be tough to stay ahead of the game. However, marketers and other beverage industry executives searching for competing products in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market might have a new tool to make things easier.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), New York-based Datamonitor reported that new food and beverage product introductions in U.S. retail outlets have risen somewhat steadily since the early 1990s. New product introductions averaged 16,324 each year between 1992 and 2010 and 20,883 each year from 2005 to 2010, including a slight decline in the 2008-2009 timeframe during the heart of the recession, according to the USDA.

Although the Datamonitor numbers are for both food and beverage introductions, beverages accounted for almost a quarter of those numbers in respective years. Beverage introductions accounted for 24.7 percent in 2006, 18.9 percent in 2007, 23.1 percent in 2008, 21.3 percent in 2009 and 21 percent in 2010. There was only one category whose launches came close to those of the beverage industry, and that was the candy, gum and snacks group, which came in a few percentage points above beverages, according to the USDA.

With so many new beverages on the market, it is crucial for marketers to help products stand out, and it looks like help might be on the way. Instant.ly seeks to tie together thousands of research marketing firms and Fortune 500 brands to build a comprehensive report on product marketing as well as provide other tools for the marketer, such as survey tools, the company says. When completed, the site will list where and when a product is noticed in retail.

Roy D. Bigham has been a managing editor at BNP Media since 2002 for Pollution Engineering and moved to Beverage Industry in 2014. Prior to joining BNP Media, Mr. Bigham worked in a variety of industries. During his career, he has served as a laboratory technician at a research laboratory, managed an electroplating operation and supervised an associated analytical laboratory. For three years, he also oversaw the environmental operations of five domestic and five overseas operations for a major manufacturer in the Detroit area. He then managed a field services department for an environmental analytical laboratory before accepting a position as an environmental engineer for a construction aggregates company.

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