Read The year of ‘unnovation’ for the packaged water industry.
In flavoured and functional waters, the trend has been to natural, and the advent of stevia – approved for use in Europe only a year ago – has made it easier for some brands to add sweetness without adding calories and still maintain a ‘natural’ claim.
This gave some brand owners the chance to look at relaunching well established products in 2012.
In January, one of the first companies to use stevia in Europe was Finland’s Hartwall, which relaunched slightly carbonated Novelle Friss flavoured water featuring 30% less calories – and a prominent ‘stevia’ logo.
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Mid-year in the UK, Britvic and PepsiCo relaunched its SoBe V Water range to include stevia, bringing the sugar content from 20g to zero and the calorie count down from 85 to just 10 or fewer calories per bottle.
But the trend to natural and away from a determination to make flavoured and functional waters taste sweet has also led to more ‘adult’ propositions, such as Balance Bitter from Vöslauer in Austria, and to more botanical and fresh-tasting, herbal offerings.
Picking up on a trend from the wider soft drinks category, 2012 saw an increase in the number of flavoured water ranges that included coconut water.
Beyond pure hydration and flavour, in the functional space, the weird and the wacky super-niche products grab the headlines, yet steal only a tiny share of the opportunity.
Mainstream day-to-day functional needs is where the money sits, and alongside a number of new products with specific mineral enhancements, such as Ustronianka’s water with magnesium and vitamin B6 in Poland, or Nestlé Waters’ Nestlé Pure Life Protect with zinc in Pakistan, we have seen some launches with very well communicated functional benefits, such as Healthy Secret’s Mune Healthy Water.
This time last year, we were looking back at an increasingly diverse functional landscape featuring ‘new’ ingredients such as lithium and fulvic acid, plus numerous products including omega-3. Super-niche products aimed at pregnant women, or specifically labelled ‘beauty’ and even a water designed to benefit patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment were in the news, alongside dozens of me-too vitamin waters. This year has been quieter, but I predict that in 2013, we will see a resurgence of these super-niche and ingredient-specific products.
In packaging, I have often asked ‘how low can you go?’ and it seems that the limits for taking weight out of PET and glass bottles may soon be reached, with only tiny improvements possible in the future. However, new technologies such as the Swerve breakthrough from PET Engineering and Sacmi and Sipa’s ‘Super’ PET project collaboration have kept the subject of lightweighting alive in 2012.
But if lightweighting is close to its limits, then it’s encouraging that many aspects of the environmental sustainability agenda are accelerating. The packaged water industry leads the way in encouraging consumer recycling so that it can better control the availability of PET for recycling into rPET.
More brands are adopting the use of rPET, and many earlier adopters have increased or have announced the intention to increase the proportion of rPET in their bottles.
In the bioplastics arena, Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle continues to steal the limelight, but initiatives from Danone and Nestlé are also worthy of applause.
The important thing is that new developments such as the YXY PEF technology from Avantium puts the emphasis firmly on all PET variants needing to be compatible when it comes to recycling.
In design, plenty of relaunches in a year with fewer new projects gave designers an opportunity to show their creativity. My favourite is the winner in the ‘Best bottle in PET’ category in the Water Innovation Awards 2012 – Nine’s redesign for Carlsberg’s Ramlösa brand in Sweden, proving that PET really can look like glass.
And returning to the theme of lightweighting, I have to close with a mention of pouches and other ‘non-bottle’ packaging for water. For some time, readers of Water Innovation magazine will have noticed that we mostly refer to the ‘packaged water industry’ rather than the ‘bottled’ water industry to ensure that we cover the biggest possible picture, and in time of recession where value for money is top of mind, pouches have gained ground.
So, what’s next for the packaged water industry in 2013? Well Water Innovation magazine has been incorporated into Beverage Innovation magazine from January, so subscribe to *Beverage Innovation* or visit FoodBev.com every day to find out.
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