Innovation in beverages

摘要

The beverage category is the most active group of products tracked by mintel international's global new products database (gnpd).New product introductions grow every year and the offerings seem to get more unique simultaneously. Before a discussion of some interesting products and the trends they represent, it is instructive to first take a look at new product introduction numbers, as shown in the table on page 32. Globally, new product introductions in the beverage category reached more than 23,000 in 2007. Beverages include all alcohol and non-alcohol drinks, barring fluid milk (which appears in the GNPD category "Dairy Products" rather than in beverages). This global increase in 2007 is a 20 percent rise over 2006's figure of 19,500 new products. Most of the increase came from Europe (up 30 percent) and Asia Pacific (up 20 percent). North American introductions (U.S. and Canada combined) were virtually flat at 3,945 in 2007 (compared to 3,813 in 2006).