“One thing we really noticed from consumer research in the category is that consumers were overwhelmed when they were looking at the shelf. ... They did not understand what benefits these products were going to have for their bodies — for their health — and they also were not sure what a lot of products in the category would taste like,” Jamie Berle, director of brand marketing at Suja Life, told FoodNavigator-USA.
Suja Organic beverages renamed to better convey purpose
With a new tagline of “Make every sip count,” Suja Organic’s rebrand focuses on simplicity, transparency, positivity and inclusivity, Berle explained. The new label design and art started hitting shelves in August and are expected to finish rolling out in early 2025, she added.
As part of the rebrand, Suja Organic renamed several SKUs to make them simpler for consumers to understand their flavors and functions, Berle said. For instance, Suja Organic’s Immunity Defense Shot was renamed Immunity Turmeric Pineapple.
Suja Organic also listed each ingredient of its green juice on the front of the bottle to boost transparency, while adding visual elements to the package to help consumers understand the product’s flavor, Berle noted.
“We added what we are calling the ‘greens meter’ on our green juices. It is a little thermometer on the side of the juice that indicates a spectrum from earthy to sweet,” she elaborated.
However, listing all the ingredients on the front of pack for the wellness shot was not feasible given the size of the bottle, so Suja Organic tweaked the wording on the shots’ carton, Berle explained.
“On the carton artwork, we have a similar ingredient listing very transparently of all the ingredients in the shot. [The ingredients are] not on the bottle as prominently as the green juice because we could not fit it, but it is on that carton. And the aim there is to just bring that transparency to consumers and help them be able to see it on shelf,” she added.
Doubling down on functional benefits with reformulations
Suja Organic also reformulated various products, including removing the juice concentrates from every SKU and upping the probiotics in its gut-health products. Suja Organic now provides 2 billion colony-forming units (CFUs) of probiotics for its gut-health products, compared to 1 billion CFUS previously.
“We know that consumers are getting more health-savvy than ever, and so we just want to make sure that we are delivering the highest quality possible ingredient list. We are going to use … the freshest whole foods that we can from as local as we can find them. So, that was the reasoning behind just removing the juice concentrates,” Berle elaborated.
Suja Life builds a house of brands to address healthy beverage trends
Earlier this year, Suja Life acquired iconic citrus soda brand Slice, which it plans to relaunch next year with functional gut-health benefits, Berle said. Previously, Suja Life acquired wellness shot company Vive Organic in 2022 to bolster growth in the shot space.
These acquisitions are part of Suja Life’s plans to become a house of brands that can address various consumer need states and occasions, Berle explained.
“We want to ... have our finger on the pulse of the most important trends in the natural healthy beverage category. We want to be able to give them offerings from Suja, from Vive [and] from Slice and be able to act as that trusted partner and an advisor with our customers because we can bring three different brands that are addressing three different consumers, different needs [and] different day parts,” she elaborated.
