Britvic to review Pepsi Raw after poor sales
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Pepsi Raw, the cola made from natural products, is under review by Britvic after disappointing sales figures.
Pepsi Raw
Nielsen reported off-trade sales of £704,000 for the year ending June 26.
Britvic, Pepsi’s UK bottler, has confirmed that the brand is under review, but that it did not signify that it was moving away from natural products.
It said: “We can confirm that Raw is currently being reviewed as part of a regular and ongoing assessment of the performance of each of our brands. We continue to support Raw as part of the Pepsi brand portfolio, and Britvic remains committed to providing a wide range of soft drinks, including products with all natural ingredients.”
Pepsi Raw was launched in 2008 in a bid to appeal to a market of sophisticated consumers who were choosing more natural products.
The drink is made using raw cane sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup more often used in cola recipes.
Rather than backing the brand with a large-scale launch, it relied on building buzz and word-of-mouth marketing, as well as a heavy retail presence and promotional activity.
Reports suggest that the brand has been losing distributors and on Pepsi Raw’s Facebook page, much of the conversation is about where the product can be bought.
The brand’s website, pepsiraw.co.uk, has not been updated recently. This morning it carried details of a competition to win tickets to Latitude 2010, which was held over the weekend of July 20.
Earlier this year, PepsiCo UK indicated it was shifting marketing spend to brands that are perceived as healthier, such as Walkers Baked, Pepsi Raw, Pepsi Max and Tropicana.
It has a target for 65% of carbonated drinks sales to be from sugar-free variants by 2015.
YouGov Insight:
· 68% of UK adults drink Coca-Cola (or variants like Diet Coke), while 42% drink Pepsi (or variants).
· Coca-Cola/Coke is easily the world’s biggest soft drinks brand, but the company behind it can now claim an astounding portfolio of 500 brands and ’3,300 beverages’.
· Coca-Cola’s maximum consumer penetration in the UK reaches over 80% among younger men and women and has a similar rate across the social grades.
Readers' comments (5)
Anonymous | Mon, 26 Jul 2010 1:19 pm
I had never even heard of Pepsi Raw before reading this... I would have tried it if I had heard about it/seen it - sounds as though relying on word of mouth wasn't very effective.
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Alistair Berry | Sat, 31 Jul 2010 4:18 am
As the previous commenter stated, it's partially because no one knows about it. I haven't seen any form of advertising for it.
The other things going against it are that it's fairly expensive and is only sold in single containers or 4 packs. There are no 2 liter bottles available like there are for almost all other soft drinks in the world.
I love the product though, both for taste and lack of horrible ingredients, and hope it is not discontinued.
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Anonymous | Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:03 pm
I'd never heard of it either and would also like to try it. I'm sure if they put as much money into advertising this as they do Pepsi Max it would be a success.
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Anonymous | Sun, 7 Nov 2010 2:46 pm
None of my friends or colleagues had even heard of Pepsi Raw until I informed them of this lovely, natural product, and it was with some frustration and disappointment that I purchased the last 8 bottles on the shelf at Sainsbury's yesterday.
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Anonymous | Mon, 28 Feb 2011 8:43 pm
I enjoyed this cola very much and the fact that there is no phosphoric acid in it is a plus. Can't seem to find it anywhere in the supermarkets now though so disappointed.
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