The carbonated beverage, which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, ace K and sucralose, and launched in February, has 5% juice, vitamins, and 92mg of caffeine in a 16oz can. Labeled as a “flavored sparkling juice beverage from concentrate”, it comes in two flavors: Orange Citrus and Fruit Punch and has 80 calories per can.
Speaking at the Barclays Back to School conference in Boston, PepsiCo president Zein Abdalla said: “Looking at scalable innovation platforms, Kickstart is a great example of this.
“We launched Kickstart Your Day, a morning proposition for Millennials who would rather drink a Mountain Dew proposition than coffee, and this has proved incredibly successful building a greater than $100 million business in its first year of launch.
“But again, thinking about that as a platform, Kickstart Your Day can easily transform into Kickstart Your Night and that will follow, leveraging again a lot of the same technology but targeting a different consumer demand space.”
Beverages globally is a 5% growth category
While volumes of carbonated beverages and cola in particular have been declining in North America, he said, “beverages globally is a 5% growth category”.
He added: “We are the largest supplier to the US retail trade in food and beverages and we have nine out of the 40 top trademarks.
“So when a retailer is looking for growth in the US PepsiCo is a very logical partner for them to plan their activity and to coordinate their activity with.”
China is going to be the single largest driver of growth for any FMCG company going forward
Meanwhile, PepsiCo also occupies “the number one position in other strategic geographies like China”, he noted.
“Franchising in China and developing our partnership with the Tingyi Company [makes] us the number one food and beverage company in that geography by some order of magnitude.
“And China as you all know is going to be the single largest driver of growth for any FMCG company going forward.”
Click here to read about PepsiCo's exploration of Chinese herbal ingredients for more 'natural' energy drinks.
Click here and here to read the latest Nielsen data on US retail sales of carbonated soft drinks and other beverages.