Beverage Industry News

Where is the Beverage Industry Headed? Who are the players? How many new companies appear? Stay Tuned for the biggest news on Beverage since the New Age Beverage Category appeared.

Coming Soon!!! Big News!!!

Thanks,


Jorge Olson

Beer Consolidation is only a small part of the total Beverage Consolidation Trend

Yes, there is big news in watching Heineken NV and Carlsberg AS, bid for UK based Scottish & Newcastle PLC. Even more after the SABMiller PLC combined US operations with Molson Coors Brewing Co. creating “MillerCoors.

Yes, that’s big news, as is the purchase of vitaminwater, Fuze, Fiji, Sobe and other non alcoholic beverages. The truth is that there is a beverage revolution. Not just in the “New Age Beverages” but in microbrew, distribution, international operations and more. SABMiller has purchased many beer companies and brands over the years, in the US we’ve seen the same trend with microbrews and now with non-alcoholics.

There are several points pushing this trend. The major and most noticeable trends are:
1. The Big Beverage Wars have guerrillas on all fronts. – The emergence of small alcoholic and non alcoholic specialty drinks creating the “New Age Beverages” now with real customers, real sales and a major piece of the beverage pie. Consumer started discovering that they could choose their own beer or other drink depending on taste, lifestyle, and health, even social or political reasons.

2. If you can’t beat them join them.- Large companies could not compete with these smaller companies in grass roots promotions, brand appeal or innovation so they started investing in them or buying them.

3. Distributors diversification.- Distribution companies or distributing franchises, such as beer distributors, starting diversifying their portfolio tremendously. This affected especially the large beer companies. Where before a beer distributor sold their name brand beer only, now they sell all kinds of microbrews, imports, and non-alcoholic beverages, especially in the new age category. This means up to 50% of their portfolio is not form the large beer company they represent.

These three just 3 points pushing the consolidation trend. When you have distributors selling 50% of your product, you need to do something about it! The easiest thing to do is buy other brands or merge with them, as we saw with beer and even energy drinks and other new age products.

All of this is topped with the large and new demand for beverages, where “old products” like large beer and soda company products grow in the -5% to 5% ratio new age beverages are growing a whopping 50% per year.

What’s next for the big beer companies? Buy more new age beverages, more microbreweries, and head south, to Mexico, one of the largest beverages consumers in the world. Not only that, the USA has a $1.5 Billion trade deficit with Mexico on Beer alone.


Jorge Olson is a Marketing and Business Strategist. He’s a beverage specialist at Liquid Brands Management, Inc. Find him at www.LiquidBrandsManagement.com

World Water Conference in Mexico City

World Water Conference in Mexico City

The world water conference in Mexico City was a complete success. All the leading water companies and upcoming companies assisted the conference. It took place in Mexico City October 13th and 14th.

During the conference major world topics were discussed including:
-The Environment
-The World Water Market
-Water Properties of Italian Springs for Ferrarelle Water
-New Products and Packages

The highlight of the conference was Ferrarelle Water, the #1 water in Italy with some of the best properties in the world. This water has all the right properties including:
-Spring Water
-Naturally Sparkling (no gas added!)
-Mineral Water
-Bottled at the source

Ferrarelle announced that they will distribute the water in all of Mexico with Master Importer and Distributor Nascent Foodservice www.NascentFoodservice.com


Thanks,


Jorge Olson

www.LiquidBrandsManagement.com

Export Beverages to Mexico

New beverages companies are exploding into the marketplace all over the world. Mexico is not the exception, it’s the rule.

Mexico is the great consumer, and beverages are what Mexicans like the most. You see, Mexico is on the top of the list of most beverage categories when talking consumption per capita and as a nation.

When visiting retail supermarkets and convenience stores in Mexico like Soriana, Wal-Mart, Costco, Comercial Mexicana, OXXO, Extra, 7-ELEVEN, Sam’s Club, HEB, Gigante or other accounts you will be amazed of the retail space given to beverage.

Last week I took several CEO’s from international marketing firms to Mexico City to some of these retail chains. Their first comment was “Wow, look at all this soda”! I’m talking about pallet after pallet on the retail floor filled with soda, water, tea, new age beverages, water and every type of beverage you can imagine. Not just in Pallets, shelve after shelve filled with beverages not just 6 feet tall, in some hallways up to 12 feet tall.

Beverage exports to Mexico are underrepresented with a mere $147,000,000 per year being exported from the USA to Mexico. This shows a Trade Deficit of $2 Billion Dollars in Beverage worth of good. Now, this is the “declared value” and not wholesale or retail value of goods, that’s much higher.

Selling beverages to Mexico is easier than ever, especially exporting from the USA. Mexico is the #1 importer of US products in the world. There is a need for all types of products including energy drinks, beer, water, flavored water, wine, soda and spirits.

Yes, Coca Cola (FEMSA) is in Mexico as is Pepsi Cola, Nestle and other very large companies, the largest, that is. But that’s it. Nobody of the other US or European beverage players are there. We’re talking a growing, emerging economy of $1.3 Trillion US dollars. We’re talking the gate to the rest of Latin America, the third largest economy in the world!

Mexico posts the greatest export opportunity for every US beverage company large and small. It has all the ingredients of a great customer. It has a great infrastructure including roads and ports to ship truckloads of products, many beverage distributors selling to supermarkets and convenience stores and more than 500,000 stores willing and able to buy new products throughout Mexico.

Mexicans are so eager to buy that they come to the USA looking for products instead of waiting around for someone to call them and sell them something. They visit US trade shows, organizations and many companies. I constantly have someone in San Diego visiting from Mexico to speak with me on how they can find products of all kinds to export.

Who’s looking for new beverages? Mainly wholesale distributors and large retailers. They are looking for beverages to sell in retail stores or to other distributors in Mexico, most of the time they will buy truckloads and export them to Mexico themselves, handling the shipping, imports and tariffs.

All you have to do is travel through the halls of Wal-Mart or Costco in Mexico to see how many products are still missing in the shelves. Products available in the USA in every single city.

Why do they do this? Why are they so eager to buy US drinks? Simple, they don’t have Mexican made products they can sell and they want to be the first to carry a new American beverage. They know if they are the first to market with a new product they can make a lot of money very fast. After that they just restock their customer’s shelves and refrigerators.

Mexico should be number 1 on the “To do list” of every small, medium and large Beverage Company in the world. If it’s not in your list, quickly, write it in with pen, bring it to your next board meeting along with some of the facts listed in the article, sit back and look good!


About The Author

Jorge Olson is a consultant, speaker and entrepreneur and expert on the Mexican Retail and Wholesale Market. Learn more about how to sell your products in Mexico by visiting www.MexicoSalesAlliance.com

Bottled Water

Here is an interesting statistic; According to Beverage Marketing Corp, Americans spent an estimated $11 billion last year on bottled water. That is over 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water.

For those of us doing business in the internationa arena, it is extremely important that we keep a close watch on the USA beverage industry, especially when dealing with our neighbors to the north and south Canada and Mexico.

The USA has long been recognized as a trend setter for our neighbors. We can bet on the water drinking trend to do the same in Mexico as it has in the USA. Mexico has a history of bottled water drinking due to the non potable water situation. The market is accustomed to 5 gallon jugs and will very easlily assimilate the smaller, trendy and convenient 500 mL and 1 lt bottles.

As one of the largest consumers of beverage in the World, Mexico is surely one to sell. And selling them is both easy and difficult, depending on who and where you are. Getting over the import/export, logistics and warehousing might seem difficult to the outsider but the truth is that Mexico does have all of the requried infrastructure to do business the right way.

This is apparent just by looking at the national and international operators already doing business there; Coca Cola, Home Depot, Mc Donald's, Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar, Cadburry Schwepps just to name a few. The supermarket chains account for the minority of retail sales with over 6,000 markets averaging 40,000 to 60,000 square feet. These supermarket operators use JIT, auto replenishment systems, centralized warehouse ad buying programs, as well as dedicated import warehouses in the USA used for interantional brands. Once the product is positioned in the markets and the required merchandising and other support is in place the sales will kick in. Hispanics are more likely to try a new brand and if your product is placed and being offered, chances are they will pick it up. If they like it and your product is everything you claim, you got yourself a customer.

Bottled water is taking up an important segment in their shelves. We have just seen the tip of the iceberg.

The Mexican wholesaler, retailer and consumer is continually on the look out for the next product.

About Liquid Brands Management, Inc.
Helping beverage companies create, produce, market and sell more beverages including New Age Beverages like Energy Drinks, Hydrating Drinks, Water, Teas and more. Liquid Brands Management achieves success with great products, a solid marketing plan and creative distribution and retailing techniques to capture more market share, faster.

Carlos Lopez is managing director for Liquid Brands Management.
Contact info
619-921-3124
email carlos@liquidbm.com

Beverage Industry: What is the future of Bottled Water?

First of all to understand the future of Bottled Water we have to see the past. Bottle Water has been around for a long time in Europe. I remember when I worked in Europe about 10 years ago we only drank bottled water. All my friends had cases and cases of bottled water, sparkling and none. They drank it by itself, they mixed it with their favorite juice, they asked for it at restaurants and drank it at home.

Bottled water has a long history in Europe and now the question is what will it do for us in the USA and all of North America?

Well, it’s a good question. The bottled water category is still growing more than 20% per year in scanned data (data available from supermarket sales) but it’s hard to say what it’s doing at convenience. My opinion is that it’s growing even more.

The real eye opener is not necessarily the bottled water category, it’s the consumer channels. The consumers are demanding more varieties of water and better watery. This is where the category will grow the most, in High-end Water.

More content to come on Bottled Water...


Thanks,


Jorge Olson

www.LiquidBM.com
Visit my website a Liquid Brands Management, Inc. to learn more about the Beverage Industry and how to sell more beverages to distributors, retailers and consumers.