Remember when the impulse-purchase racks at the grocery store only offered toys, gum, and celebrity gossip magazines? Now single-serve beverage coolers are taking up sizeable real estate "front-of-store" at grocers, convenience stores, drug stores, mass merchandisers, and more thanks to a strong and seemingly universal demand for a wide range of grab-and-go drinks. Sales figures prove the point. Companies attuned to the convenience trend reaped high rewards last year. Grab-and-go packaged beverages yielded growth of 6% in traditional stores and 11% in the convenience channel in 2012-both significantly outpacing the beverage category as a whole, which grew at 2.6%, according to estimates by IRI, the research and consulting firm covering the retail and healthcare industries.
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