The healthy-eating trend arrived long ago, and now Sodastream International Ltd. (Nasdaq: SODA) is embracing it as well, and is launching a new line of products, scheduled to hit the shelves this spring. The products are made of all natural ingredients, have less sugar, no preservatives, and only natural flavors. The price in Israel will be the same: NIS 15 for a 500 milliliter bottle, which makes 12 liters of flavored beverage. SodaStream says that this is the lowest price for this product in the world.
Four new product lines will be launched first in Israel: reduced calorie fruit flavors, the “Zeros” series, which has zero calories and is sweetened with stevia, the “Plus” series, with various nutritional supplements, such as vitamins and dietary fiber, and the “Essences” very-lightly-sweetened flavored water series.
Another gourmet series was launched recently in the US, in collaboration with 2-Michelin-star US celebrity chef Paul Liebrandt, which features extracts with more unique flavors, such as basil. For the launch, SodaStream and the bottles themselves were redesigned.
SodaStream reports significant changes in global beverage consumption, with a massive consumer migration from sweetened beverages, full of chemicals and sugar, to water, and healthy beverages. In 2014, SodaStream suffered a slowdown due to a dramatic drop in demand in the US, which the company attributes to this healthy-eating trend. The transition to healthful products is intended to address this change, among other things. “The world is attacking sugar,” said SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum, “In Finland, you will pay €12 for a bottle of syrup that costs NIS 15 in Israel, just because of the special tax on high-sugar products. We are trying to create a balance between healthier beverages and tastier water.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 9, 2015
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