The company that revolutionized coffee consumption has launched a cold version
NACS Online
Seventeen years ago, Keurig Green Mountain launched its single-serve, pod-based home brewing system, changing the way many Americans—and retailers—made coffee. This week, Keurig unveiled its single-serve solution for the carbonated beverage market, Marketing Daily reports.
Keurig Kold is now available online, and next month at some retailers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York. Journalists at the launch event had mixed feelings about the fizzy beverage maker, with some pointing to an overall drop in soda consumption in the United States as a potential downside to sales.
“We essentially had to take a bottling plant and shrink it down and make it look beautiful,” said Keurig CEO Brian Kelley in a Bloomberg report. “Consumers want variety, they want to make the drink for themselves, but they want it to taste perfect.”
The machine doesn’t rely on a carbon dioxide canister for fizz. Instead, Keurig cold pods are part carbon dioxide beads and part flavoring. Keurig Kold offers Canada Dry, Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Dr Pepper, Fanta and Sprite flavors, as well as its own line (Flyte, Red Barn Craft Sodas and Waterful).
“We’re confident this is the next big growth engine for the company,” Kelley informed the Wall Street Journal. Keurig has been tinkering with a cold beverage machine for five years.
The platform will give Keurig a play in more beverage categories, dayparts and consumption occasions. “Kold extends our reach from the morning daypart to an all-day, all-night appliance,” said Kelley in a press release. While the average household only includes one coffee drinker, “everyone drinks cold beverages. … Keurig Kold broadens our appeal to more households with everything from iced teas and craft sodas, to sports drinks and cocktail mixers.”
