Last year, juice lovers had to swallow bitter news: the popular Punica brand was discontinued. Now the US group Tropicana Brands is venturing back into the market. The bottling of fruit juice drinks is scheduled to start again in March.
The Hamburg drinks marketer Columbus Drinks is responsible for sales and plans to bring the brand back to supermarket shelves at the beginning of April.
This means a lot of development work for Hamburg’s beverage marketers, writes the specialist magazinesmittel Zeitung. There were reasons for Punica’s discontinuation: In 2021, the brand only had retail sales of 33 million euros – with a strong downward trend.
While sales by liter in Punica’s golden age were around 170 million, until shortly before the brand was discontinued there were only around 30 million liters. And they were literally squandered: most of the quantity was sold at a discount at a special price of less than 80 cents per bottle, according to those in the industry.
In February 2023, Punica disappeared from supermarket shelves. The US beverage company Pepsico announced at the time that the brand would be completely withdrawn from the market. Pepsico sold the majority of its juice division, including Punica, to financial investor PAI Partners in 2022.
The new joint venture Tropical Brands Group reviewed strategic priorities and made the decision to withdraw Punica from the market, Pepsico said at the time. Production had already been stopped in September 2022. Until the end of last year, juice lovers could only buy remaining stocks.