Thursday, October 25, 2007

Glaceau Enters the World of Coke


Glaceau the maker of the infamous Vitaminwater and Fruitwater hit a major grand slam recently when they decided to sell to Coke for $4.2 Billion dollars. Yep that’s billions. I am still amazed at the purchase price given that just less than a year earlier Coke offered half that amount for a company whose sales were approximately $355 million. Has the internet purchase price phenomenon hit the beverage world? One of the big winners was Tata Tea who aquired a 30% stake in the company less than year ago for $677 million. What a way to double your money without the back breaking work of actually having to sell the products.

Coke in recent times has suggested that they bought this company because of the potential it has to morph this brand into something that can compete with Gatorade. Gatorade? Wow, what a stretch! Is that what we are going to see in the next few years – athletes chugging Vitaminwater during time outs, coaches getting barrels of Fruitwater thrown over them at the end of a big upset? Given what Coke has done with every brand that it has purchased over time does this brand stand a chance? Also, how will Coke and Vitaminwater compete with the slew of copycat products that are coming out into the marketplace in the next few months to fill the distribution voids left by this purchase? Is Sobe bigger or smaller since Pepsi purchased them?

I would like to hear your thoughts on whether this product will survive and over time can Vitaminwater match up to the power of Gatorade?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Beverages Today

This is start of the all new Beverages Direct blog. Hopefully we can use this forum to solve all the beverage issues. Give us some topics you would like to hear about. We are definitely not short of opinions.