Vegetables In Beverages Goes Mainstream

The vegetable trend in beverages is heating up.

• According to Datamonitor, vegetables in beverages are one of the top 10 consumer packaged goods trends to watch in 2014.
• A growing number of consumers want to keep it healthy when quenching their thirst and 55% are making conscious efforts to include more vegetables in their diets.
• Beverage manufacturers have responded and today, more and more beverages are incorporating vegetables. According to Mintel, new U.S. beverages launched with vegetable flavors numbered 114, compared with 94 products a year ago, This includes juices and juice drinks, enhanced waters, beers, spirits, drink mixes, sports drinks, coffees, teas and carbonated soft drinks.
• While vegetables like cucumber have long been one of the most popular and versatile vegetable beverage bases, new sweet-and-spicy flavor combinations are popping up across all beverage categories. Trending spicy and savory flavors include ginger, jalapeno, cayenne, basil, and many earthy greens to meet the ethnic, international, and adventurous millennial flavor seekers.

Vegetable Juices, Inc. has developed innovative ways to incorporate the health and wellness of vegetables into four beverage platforms.

Calorie Conscious Beverages
Lowering calories and sugar using vegetables
Consumers everywhere are looking to reduce their intake of high-sugar, high-calorie beverages with natural ingredients. Beverage manufacturers have historically turned to adding water and artificial sweeteners to minimize calories and sugars, but there is a natural, nutritious and healthful option: Vegetable Juices, Inc. has developed innovative formulations and processes for delicious-tasting, lower-calorie juices. By blending lower brix vegetable juices like cucumber or lettuce with higher brix fruit juices, a delicious juice is created that has fewer calories and less sugar. These vegetable juices with their subtle fresh green notes are developed to be the primary building blocks of a beverage system but will impart little flavor or color to the lead juice flavor. And the best part, they contribute beneficial vegetable servings with fewer calories per serving! Vegetable Juices has the expertise to help you create lower calorie beverages that still deliver all the fresh squeezed goodness your consumers crave.

Beverages with Stealth Health
Sneaking “healthy” into tasty
According to the CDC, less than a third of adults meet their recommended consumption of fruit and vegetables and it’s even worse for kids.
Vegetables are good sources of minerals and vitamins, have abundant amounts of antioxidants with less sugar than fruits, and are lacking in our diets.
But just because we don’t eat our vegetables, doesn’t mean we don’t like to drink them! Smoothies turn eating our fruits and vegetables into a fun, convenient, and delicious experience. The smoothie category is growing triple digits and fortunately, most vegetables blend well with fruits in smoothies.
Many green vegetables like celery, kale, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, and parsley blend very well with apples, kiwi, pineapple, bananas, oranges, and honeydew. Carrots complement apples, ginger, white grape, mango, peach, oranges, and cantaloupe. Purple sweet potatoes and beets blend well with blueberries, strawberries, raisins, cherry, and red grape. Tomatoes pair perfectly with mango, orange, and lime.

To sneak in some health, try our concentrates like purple sweet potato or kale. To add whole vegetable nutrition, try using our micro-cut purees to add texture and nutrition. Vegetable Juices, Inc.’s culinary team has formulated many innovative, on-trend and RTD formats that meet consumers desire to incorporate more vegetables in their diet, in a convenient and delicious way.

Intuitively Healthy Beverages
Drinking what you know is good for you.
For thousands of years, people have integrated vegetables into their lives for their alleged nutritional values and healing properties. Today, we positively know that eating vegetables is part of an overall healthy diet that can reduce risk of chronic diseases. Today’s health-savvy consumers are looking to add vegetables and superfoods into their diets in convenient, easy to consume formats. Think straw and sip. Vegetables are superfoods, naturally low in fat and calories, and loaded with nutrients, including potassium, dietary fiber, folate, vitamin A and C. By adding them to beverages, they become super-convenient, superfood. Vegetable Juices, Inc. are experts on following trends and developing creative formulations that incorporate nutritious vegetables and taste amazingly good.

For consumers that are consciously reading labels and actively attempting to incorporate more vegetables in their diets, explore with Vegetable Juices the many delicious combinations where vegetables and their nutrition are at the forefront.

Functional Beverages
Drinking for specific health benefits
High nutritional value is important to consumers looking for function in their beverage. Adding vegetable juices improves on that functionality in two ways: adding micro-nutrients and vegetable servings. Choosing the right vegetables, flavors, and ingredients facilitates this improvement yet still delivers the taste and refreshment consumers require. Whether developing a sports drink that is functional and tastes refreshing or formulating natural blended benefits into your next tea or energy drink, vegetables offer nutrition and function across many beverage categories including natural hydration, vitamins, minerals, nitrate, potassium, low-sugar, and natural sweetness.

For over 80 years, Vegetable Juices has been working to deliver high quality, minimally processed vegetables products to maximize the nutritional content and goodness your consumer desires.

 

Visit with our vegetable experts and discover the many ways that vegetables are being incorporated into beverages. Whether you need a single ingredient or custom blend, quench your thirst for nature’s goodness. We are the natural partner to consider when creating your next beverage innovation. Contact us today for more information.