Gatorade Naturals Is a Flop, Line to Be Discontinued

by Christopher Freeburn | January 21, 2014 10:40 am

[1]Despite a general trend toward “natural” foods, a line of sports drinks that promoted natural ingredients, including sea salt, failed to gain traction among athletic consumers.

PepsiCo (PEP[2]) said that its Gatorade Naturals and G2 Naturals drinks were pulled from supermarket shelves in November. A statement from PepsiCo conceded that Gatorade Naturals “did not resonate” with consumers. Gatorade Naturals hit U.S. stores in 2010. Gatorade Naturals and G2 Naturals were sold at Kroger (KR[3]) supermarkets and Whole Foods Market (WFM[4]) stores, just-drinks.com notes[5].

Gatorade is a leading brand in the sports drink market[6], which generates U.S. sales of about $7 billion a year. The brand has long been popular among consumers, but stumbled after a rebranding effort in 2009.

Slapping the word natural on products has rubbed some consumers the wrong way[7]. In 2012, PepsiCo was sued for describing some Frito-Lay snack chips as “natural.” It later shortened the “Simply Natural” name to just “Simply” for some snack chips, but attributed that change to marketing considerations. Last year, PepsiCo dropped the words “all natural” from descriptions of its Naked Juice after a lawsuit claimed the drinks contained synthetic ingredients, the Associated Press notes.

Gatorade Naturals had not been hit by any lawsuits, according to PepsiCo.

Early last year, PepsiCo announced that it would stop using [8]brominated vegetable oil in Gatorade drinks[9] after an online petition attracted more than 200,000 supporters.

Shares of PepsiCo climbed modestly in Tuesday morning trading.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2014/01/gatorade-naturals-flop-line-discontinued/

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