Protein is going mainstream

Along with adult and child staples such as tobacco/alcohol and confectionery, soft drinks and snacks are major mainstays of the impulse channel.

Energy drinks – including  sports and protein– once a moribund category, have been slowly advancing into the centre of the fridge facings and their consumers – although still disproportionately younger males – are changing their profile to become wider and more representative of the general population. And that means more sales.

The process of mainstreaming extreme performance has only been accelerated by – of course – the pandemic, which has made everybody pay more attention to the state of their bodies. So if you can buy something tasty that is not only guilt-free but can turn help you into a fitter person, what’s not to like?

“Health and wellness is front of mind for many consumers, with many reviewing their lifestyle choices recently, says Amy Burgess, Senior Trade Communications Manager at Coca-Cola – which owns 20 per cent of the market-leading Monster brand.

“The lockdown period has seen a growing emphasis on staying fit and healthy, with almost half of people making an effort to keep active at home, including taking part in online exercise classes, solo home workouts and outdoor pursuits like running and cycling. Many of these habits have been retained, presenting an opportunity for retailers to grow their sales by offering products to those looking to fuel up while they keep fit.”

NPD has been taking account of this home-healthy evolution, and the boundaries separating what used to be specialist products from normal ones are shifting and blurring. Even fruit juices are now looking at vitamins and mineral boosts to their drinks – see for example Tropicana’s recent launch of its Tropicana+ range with added B and C vitamins and magnesium.

The product profile is subtly adjusting, too, from selling drinks that merely keep you “up”, to talking about a wider array of biological plusses that can actively assist in getting you fit or keeping you that way: Run Forever becomes Run Better. It is all indicative of a market that is widening and maturing, and allowing many gradations of sport, energy and protein purchases to compete for the same (expanding) shelf-space.

So what should you be looking for to maximise sales in this incredibly energetic category that is currently piling on muscle?

Staying on-trend

Whether it is added ingredients – the list grows long as we get into guarano, taurine, creatine, caffeine, vitamins and so on – or ingredients subtracted, such as making drinks lower in sugar, which is perhaps the biggest trend (and a defining feature for a brand such as Carabao), the taste and recipe profile of these products is moving into the mainstream.

Lucozade perhaps represents the widest and longest-established brand of sports drink in the UK (although Hansen, originator of Monster, has been around since 1935!)

Matt Gouldsmith, who is Channel Director, Wholesale, at the recently renamed Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I, believes that consumers are actively seeking healthier alternatives, which will likely continue throughout the category irrespective of the radical changes brought on by coronavirus. He says that 63 per cent of now say they eat healthily all or most of the time, “Showing just how crucial this segment of the market is in helping achieve overall growth. It’s important to have the right range available to shoppers, to help drive sales from those looking for healthier soft drink options.”

This means retailers should ensure their chillers are stocked up on lower-sugar soft drinks such as Lucozade Sport Low Cal, to capitalise on the ongoing trend towards lower-sugar choices and maintaining an active lifestyle.

It means that not everybody looking for these drinks is heading for the gym – but rather they are seeking to ingest healthier products or simply ones that are less harmful. Stressing the sporting link to health is the Lucozade strategy:

“Lucozade Sport has teamed up with England footballing superstar Raheem Sterling as part of a marketing campaign for new Lucozade Sport Cherry Kick, which is the latest addition to the £111m portfolio,” says Gouldsmith. “The marketing activity will span several months in the run-up to Christmas and will highlight the importance of keeping hydrated during exercise even during the colder months.”

Coca-Cola is going technical with its new Reign Total Body Fuel, which includes ingredients designed to enhance performance during workouts, says Burgess, “such as branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), which can help to prevent protein muscle breakdown, and L-Arginine, which improves blood flow and stimulates the release of growth hormones.” The recipe is also enriched with Vitamins B3, B6 and B12, “which contribute to reducing fatigue and normalising metabolism.”

The range features four variants – Melon Mania, Razzle Berry, Lemon Hdz and Sour Apple – and is already worth ten times more than nearest like-for-like UK competitor – again, underlining the extraordinary growth in the category and the self-education that accompanies it, as consumers eagerly learn about all the chemistry and biology they might have skipped in school.

“Reign Total Body Fuel enables retailers to tap into the performance drinks opportunity in GB,” Burgess continues. “The segment is worth more than $400m in the US and is growing by 41 per cent, highlighting the untapped potential in this market.”

Burgess notes that the range is tapping into a new drinking occasion:“Within eight months of launching in the US, Reign gained a 25 per cent market share of performance energy drink sales, and just less than a year since launch, it’s already worth more than £2million – ten times more than nearest like for like competitor here in GB.”

The new kid on the block shaping up as challenger could well be Virtue Drinks, which is launching a Clean Energy drink range in the UK and globally.

Virtue has expanded its range of natural energy drinks, with the introduction of a new natural and sugar-free range, with the increasing demand for clean energy.

Containing 80mg of natural caffeine from green coffee beans and enriched with b-vitamins, the new drinks are available in two flavours: Lemon & Lime and Berries.

The clean energy drinks contain zero sugar and zero calories. They are naturally sweetened with a clean alternative to traditional energy drinks, with a unique combination of agave nectar and stevia plant extract.

They are designed to provide consumers with a clean and sugar-free pick me up, without the highs and lows of sugary energy drinks and none of the artificial ingredients, such as synthetic caffeine or artificial sweeteners, of traditional sugar-free energy drinks.

“This is a very exciting launch for Virtue, with clean energy growing at double the rate of the category and 48 per cent of non-energy drink users seeing sugar as their main barrier to entry, we see this as a major opportunity to bring new consumers into the energy category,” says Virtue’s founder, Rahi Daneshmand.

“Providing all the natural caffeine of traditional energy drinks or coffee, with a naturally sweetened mainstream taste profile without any sacrifice on taste, while maintaining zero sugar & calories, is a breakthrough in energy drinks and will help further widen the energy category reach.”

Virtue Clean Energy drinks have been on sale in Sainsbury’s through October but are now rolling out to independents across the country.

Christmas, too, is an important time: Soft Drinks as a whole sell +19 per cent more at Christmas vs the rest of the year, and Sports & Energy was the 2nd fastest growing category in soft drinks during the same period last year.

Sports and Protein are not just for the summer.

Taste – a game of two halves

As sports and protein products settle into the chiller at centre-stage as big sellers, the sports spectator angle becomes bigger – something that Carabao has long-associated itself with. David Butcher, Carabao’s MD in the UK, says “Shoppers naturally associate the Carabao Energy Drink brand with sport due to the brand marketing and football sponsorships over the years. Carabao brand-awareness correlates strongly with the latter stages of the Carabao Cup” – the old League Cup –“and for this reason independent retailers should ensure the brand is prominent within chillers around January-March each year to benefit from the increased shopper awareness and demand.”

Carabao has also cultivated a local-level sponsorship relation with particular football clubs – last month it became the official partner of both Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian in Scotland, with each team represented by a different flavour: Carabao’s Mixed Berry variant for Midlothian and Green Apple for Hibs! In addition, football fanatics Carabao Energy Drink are also in the fourth year of a five-year sponsorship deal as an official partner of the EFL. “The brand is also an official Global Partner of Chelsea FC, reaching football fans across the world,” says David, which is big of him, because he supports West Ham.

It is fortunate that the Carabao Cup competition coincides with the start of the year, when many consumers, health conscious after the excesses of the festive season, are hitting the gym (lockdowns allowing). Be sure to stock up for then with this independent-loyal brand.

Carabao, as we have noted, trades on its low-sugar content and low 63 calories per can, as well as a range a range of delicious fruity flavours that mark it out from any grin-and-bear-it energy shot.

Red Bull rose to prominence, famously, despite its taste, as ad-man Rory Sutherland once noted. By now, however, that unusual taste has become a trend-setter in its own right and has even become accepted as the tang of energy and sports liquids.

Today, with the  Sports & Energy category worth £1.3bn and growth totalling over £25.3m vs 2019, Red Bull has surely been vindicated in its belief that form follows function in this market.

Indeed, Red bull says that “This growth has been fuelled by the increasing demand for Functional Energy.” These functional drinks have added over £130m to the category vs 2019 and are fast approaching a billion-pound segment, today worth over £900m annually.”

This October, Red Bull announced its latest campaign, Red Bull Air Mail, an on-pack promotion featuring on Red Bull Energy Drink 250ml 4-packs in the impulse channel, launching to wider grocery this November.

Red Bull Air Mail can be found in-store via the limited-edition sleeve on Red Bull Energy Drink 250ml 4-packs. Once opened, the inside of the pack will become a postcard to sample a friend or family member, who can then simply enter a code online to easily redeem a 4-pack for themselves to get them through a busy week. “With the value of Red Bull multipacks growing +40.6 per cent in the last month, now is the perfect time for retailers to stock up,” said a spokesperson for the company.

Red Bull is aiming to drive a better understanding of multiple moments of need, and identifies its four key moments as Sports & Fitness, Work & Study, Socialising, and Travel occasions.

In light of this, Red Bull also announced in October that its Summer Edition, launched back in July, will be made a permanent SKU, extending the existing Editions range renamed as the “Red Edition”.

Even though it was originally a time-limited product, Red Bull Summer Edition’s rate of sale is in line with the top launches in Sports & Energy, as shoppers bought over 150,000 cans in just one month after launch. With those sorts of sales, a producer will rethink the strategy, and now Red Edition is here to stay!

As is the Red Bull pack size: Red Bull Energy Drink 250ml is worth over £132m. “We believe this is the perfect pack size for Functional Energy and it fits most consumers’ energy needs, containing the same amount of sugar as a glass of apple juice and the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee,” said Red Bull, and now recommends retailers stock up on multipacks, as Christmas is on the way, when Red Bull multipacks trade +59% during the festivities with more in-home consumption occasions driving increased demand.

Red Bull Zero was relaunched earlier in 2020 with a reformulated taste profile and has sold 1m cans, adding almost £1.3 of value as part of Red Bull’s £23m YTD growth vs 2019. Red Bull Zero is now available in a 250ml 4-pack to meet this profitable festive retail opportunity.

Christmas this year might look a little different for many of us, with larger gatherings curtailed and increasing restrictions in the ways in which we socialise with friends and family both in and out of home. However, shoppers are still reaching for Red Bull to satisfy that in-home consumption occasion, with Red Bull delivering 1/3 of multipack sales during this period.

It’s not only liquids

The grocery market this year has been rife with vegetarian and vegan options, many of which depend on pea protein for their bulk. One tried-and-tested protein alternative to meat, however, is the market-leading Quorn (named after the Leicestershire village of Quorn), which instead uses mushroom protein, or mycoprotein, as its energy-driver.

“Mycoprotein is the super-protein at the heart of all products from Quorn, the £203m brand pioneering the meat-free category,” says Gill Riley, Marketing Director at Quorn Foods UK.

Alongside significant health benefits such as being naturally high in protein, high in fibre and low in total and saturated fat, she explains that mycoprotein uses 90 per cent less land and water than beef, produces less greenhouse gases and Quorn believes it can play a big role in creating a more sustainable world.

“Health and sustainability have always been at the heart of everything we do at Quorn and we have big ambitions to help reduce the impact of our diets on the planet and our health,” she emphasises.

“Not only do we deliver a sustainable, nutritious protein in products such as Quorn Mince and Quorn Pieces, we also provide great tasting, easy to prepare foods and recipe ideas – all of which help towards making it easier for consumers to adopt healthier habits with our protein-rich food source that is unique to Quorn products.”

Amino acids are organic compounds that combine to form proteins and are often referred to as the building blocks of life. Unlike some plant-based proteins, mycoprotein contains all nine essential amino acids, making it a complete protein comparable to “traditional” sources of protein such as beef, chicken and fish.

“As an iconic brand, we take our responsibility towards health and sustainability very seriously and we continue to invest in evidence-based scientific research to investigate the benefits of our super-protein,” adds Gill.

A study by the University of Exeter, which was recently published in world-leading academic journal, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that mycoprotein stimulates post-exercise muscle building to a greater extent than milk protein in healthy young males.

If that is true, it makes Quorn much more than  simply a vegetarian meat substitute, and inserts it usefully into the sports and protein product category for those interested in fitness.

The Exeter study results showed that while those who ingested milk protein increased their muscle building rates by up to 60 per cent, those who had mycoprotein increased their muscle growth rates (MGRs) by more than double this – “showing that mycoprotein, the main ingredient in all Quorn products, is a more effective source of protein to promote muscle growth” says Gill.

As the world adjusts to living with the experience of a pandemic that has affected every aspect of people’s lives, the trend towards healthy eating and drinking is only going to advance.

Stock the right products, and your profits can easily keep up.