Consumer awareness of sugar content in soft drinks continues to grow and play a key role in product innovation and portfolio management. At the same time, suppliers are under increasing pressure to re-evaluate the various sweetening methods for soft drinks amid supply chain shortages and inflationary pressure. In this piece, we’ll look at how and why it’s important for ingredient suppliers to not just monitor their own commodity prices but the prices and availability of the end user products their ingredients go into. We’ll examine how select artificial sweeteners are performing in the US over a 2-year period by way of the carbonates market within soft drinks. Using Via, Euromonitor International’s e-commerce tracking tool, a variety of data metrics for product categories by sweetener ingredient can be easily tracked and provide insights such as:
- Carbonates with stevia still only represent 5% of online stock keeping units (SKUs) in January 2023 compared to 29% of SKUs with sugar listed as a sweetener
- Stevia SKUs had the highest unit price and saw prices rise significantly during the first half of 2021
- Consumer satisfaction with stevia products remains low with only an average rating of 4.24 compared to a 4.55 rating for those SKUs with aspartame and acesulfame potassium
Sugar remains a popular sweetener within carbonates by digital share of shelf
End product prices for carbonates fluctuate heavily for all sweetener types
Monitoring the growth of unit prices gives close insight into the cause-and-effect relationship of ingredients supply and the impact on end product prices. In the case of stevia, there was a drastic increase in unit price of these SKUs from March to June 2021 and this was due to inadequate farm labour during COVID restrictions as well as the lowest yields of stevia leaves in six years. The end product price has levelled off, but there is still inadequate raw production to meet demand; overall, the unit price of these SKUs increased by 40% during January 2021 to January 2023. SKUs with sugar, however, increased the highest during this time period growing by 56%. This was much higher than the commodity price of sugar which rose by 25% during the same period, according to Euromonitor’s Economies and Consumers database. These products have been especially impacted by cost-push inflationary pressures as well as increased competition from highly-priced artisanal carbonates.
Stevia products receive significantly lower consumer satisfaction ratings
As consumers and companies struggle to adjust to new cost-push and demand-pull drivers behind inflationary pressures, monitoring online prices for select categories and baskets of goods provides key insights on how price increases are manifesting themselves across categories, companies and pack sizes. Companies need to track these changing prices closely from a variety of perspectives in order to track competition and look for pricing advantages and opportunities. Learn more about how Via can support your business and help you unlock key strategic and tactical insights with its standardised online product coverage across 80 countries, 1,500 online retailers and 11 consumer goods industries.
Note: Sample based on SKU prices found in Euromonitor’s e-commerce tracking tool, Via, with data extracted in February 2023. Please note that due to ongoing improvements to the AI-led product matching of SKUs to categories, suppliers and brands, data and SKU counts can be revised based on system updates. SKU counts used for change in availability analysis and unit prices: SKUs with Sugar (Jan 2021 – 1,409, Jan 2023 – 1,756), SKUs with Aspartame (Jan 2021 – 573, Jan 2023 – 681), SKUs with Acesulfame Potassium (Jan 2021 – 490, Jan 2023 – 596), SKUs with Stevia (Jan 2021 – 200, Jan 2023 – 283). SKU counts used for reviews: SKUs with Sugar, Jan 2023 – 549, SKUs with Aspartame, Jan 2023 – 229, SKUs with Acesulfame Potassium, Jan 2023 – 169, SKUs with Stevia, Jan 2023 – 142. SKU information extracted from the following e-commerce retailers: Amazon, CVS, Giant Eagle, GNC, Harris Teeter, H-E-B, Kroger, Meijer, Pavilions, Publix, Safeway, Target, Thrive Market, Walmart, Wegmans, Wholefoods.