Without a doubt, Gatorade is the gorilla in the sports drink industry. However, even though the company controls roughly 70% of the sports drink market, it knows it cannot rest on its current success. There is constant pressure from new challengers in the sports and energy drink and market, particularly from healthier sports drinks such as organic drinks and coconut water.
In response to the growing consumer demand for organic foods, Gatorade spent two research of research to formulate the new product – G Organic. The product contains only seven ingredients: water, organic cane sugar, citric acid, organic natural flavor, sea salt, sodium citrate and potassium chloride. It’s worth noting the G Organic does contain more sugar (7 teaspoons) than the USDA recommended allowance (6 teaspoons).
While the product is currently in limited distribution, the company plans to grow the rollout into new markets. There are three flavors – strawberry, lemon, and mixed berry. Suggested retail price is $1.69 for a 16.9-ounce bottle. This is 50 cents over the nonorganic Gatorade Thirst Quencher drink.
While broad food sales gained only 3% growth last year, the organic food industry sales in the U.S. is up 11% to $43.3 billion in 2015. There is increasing demand from consumers, athletes, and nutritionist for healthier energy drinks. Getting an organic designation isn’t easy. The company had to eliminate all artificial ingredients and refine its manufacturing process in order to earn the USDA organic accreditation.
Ready for your workout?
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- First, discuss the new Gatorade Organic products.
- View Gatorade’s products: http://www.gatorade.com/
- Discuss how to build and use a SWOT analysis grid: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (internal and external factors).
- For Gatorade Organic product, break students into teams and have each team build a SWOT analysis grid.
- Strengths: what is company good at?
- Weaknesses: what needs work?
- Opportunities: what is going on in marketplace?
- Threats: what should company be wary of?
- Based on the analysis, what are the issues and risks that might occur?
- Debrief by building SWOT analysis grid on the white board.
Source: Ad Age Daily, Bloomberg News, other news sources
