Established brands continue to lead the drink mix category, although some varieties did experience contraction in the last year. The overall drink mix category grew 1.6 percent for more than $609.7 million in sales for the 52 weeks ending May 15 in U.S. supermarkets, drug stores, gas and convenience stores and mass merchandise outlets, excluding Wal-Mart, according to SymphonyIRI Group, Chicago. Fruit drink mixes made up a majority of the category with $590 million in sales, which represents a 1.6 percent growth.
The juice and juice drinks market saw new products that combined flavors and explored sweetener profiles. Minimal growth took place in both the shelf-stable bottled juice and juice drinks category as well as refrigerated juice and juice drinks, an upside compared to last year’s slight decrease for bottled juices and relatively flat sales for refrigerated offerings.
Döhler-Milne Aseptics and Milne Fruit Products offer a range of products for beverage applications. Döhler partnered with PureCircle to offer stevia-based sweetening systems under the MultiSweet Stevia ingredient range that is suited for carbonated soft drink, still and juice beverage applications.
