Spanish juice giant Don Simon is gunning for Innocent with a range of low-cost smoothies.

Branding current smoothie prices “ruthlessly high”, Don Simon is looking to eat into Innocent’s dominance of the £143m smoothie market by selling below the price of even some ownlabel ranges.

Rolling out to Asda this week and other retailers during May, the chilled Don Simon range is priced £1.99 for a onelitre pack, and comes in strawberry & banana, mango & passion fruit and mixed berries avours made from 100% not-from-concentrate fruit juices and purées.

Tesco is selling 750ml own-label smoothies at £2.18 or two-for-£3.50, while Sainsbury’s ownlabel range is £2.29 for one litre. Asda shoppers can pick up an orange, mango and passion fruit smoothie made with from-concentrate orange juice for £1 for 750ml.

Innocent is selling its smoothies at an average of £2.52 for 750ml and £3.39 for 1.25 litres [BrandView], and is growing slightly behind the market at 7.4% yearon- year by volume and 6.9% by value to £112.2m [SymphonyIRI 52 w/e 17 March 2012], giving it an 80% market share.

“The smoothie market has been dominated by one brand and prices have been ruthlessly high,” said Richard Cawood, marketing manager at Don Simon owner J Garcia Carrión.

Cawood claimed economies of scale – it is the second-biggest juice producer in Europe and has long-term contracts with more than 30,000 farmers – gave it the ability to undercut Innocent. It added that it planned a “strong calendar” of price promotions.

Carrión launched the Don Simon juice brand here in 2006 and last year rolled out a range of Disney Smoothies that is currently worth about £1.1m [SymphonyIRI].

Innocent sales director David Pickup said any new entrant faced the challenge of o ering value, quality and brand experience that would persuade consumers to enter the category or change shopping habits.

Don Simon is not the rst big player to take on Innocent. In 2008, PepsiCo launched Tropicana smoothies, which have since been dropped. Its new Naked brand grew 200% last year to £2.2m. 

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