Coca-Cola is giving the Powerade brand its first update in more than a decade and Shane Grant, President of the Still Beverage Division told Cheddar the time is ripe for change.
“What we’ve seen, really, in the sports trend market is some pretty fast evolution,” said Grant, adding, ”What we’ve seen is traditional core-sports drinks serving, what we think, is probably only a third of what we call ‘sweat moments.’”
Two of the new products will be called Powerade Power Water and Powerade Ultra. The company created the new sugar-free products as market research showed casual athletes are seeking out zero-calorie, water-based drinks.
The drinks will also feature shelf-stabilized creatine, which is supposed to provide energy to muscles. “Our data would show almost 70 percent of sports-drink users use some kind of supplement,” said Grant while noting that creatine use is growing at a high rate.
Grant told Cheddar there has been “pretty fast growth in casual athletic pursuit -- everything from running, jogging, CrossFit, to maybe biking.” He called that a “divergence of sweat moments.” Coupled with growth in what Grant called “high end, more endurance, more intense athletic activity,” Powerade saw an opportunity to create sports drinks to serve every type of user.
He believes the field will continue to grow as people become more active and Powerade hopes to play into that growth, deploying more marketing in 2020 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against PepsiCo Inc. on Wednesday, accusing the soda-and-snack food giant of polluting the environment and endangering public health after its single-use plastics were found along the Buffalo River.
Voting on a tentative contract agreement between General Motors and the United Auto Workers union that ended a six-week strike against the company appears too close to call after the latest tallies at several GM factories were announced Wednesday.
Microsoft is partnering with Warner Brothers for the film Wonka to release a limited edition Xbox series X that looks like one of Willy Wonka's famous chocolate bars.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was back in court Tuesday to testify in an antitrust trial that accuses the company of running an illegal monopoly on its Android apps.
Ed Egilinsky, managing director and head of sales and distribution & alternatives with Direxion, joined Cheddar News to discuss how bond traders are reacting to the latest consumer price index data and how they're positioning portfolios ahead of next week's release of Nvidia's earnings. Egilinsky also discussed some of the other bigger-cap companies, including Alphabet, Amazon and Apple.
