When Exotic Planet burst on to the scene in 1997, smoothies and premium juice drinks was a nascent market, but over the past decade it has grown significantly, not only in value but in the number of brands now present.
Innocent is far and away the market leader in smoothies and remains the benchmark for other companies to aspire to, but as the brand becomes more mainstream, precipitated by its recent tie-in with McDonald's, smaller companies have been attempting to fill the niche gap left behind.
I Am Fresh, for example, is a juice company that, like Exotic Planet, makes a point of not using concentrates and purées. Its products are not even heat-treated, to ensure they retain all the vitamins and minerals found in whole fruit, something which it says gives it an edge over its rivals. As the market becomes flooded with new brands, I Am Fresh believes consumers will increasingly look to a product's health credentials.
Del Monte has made the move into the chiller cabinets with a range of chilled adult juice drinks called Juice Bar and newcomer Sunyrasia has also launched an adult range of flavours, including Williams pear and prunes. RDA Organic, meanwhile, uses its organic status as a point of difference.
Even PepsiCo-owned PJ Smoothies has made a move to smarten its image. It relaunched with new packaging earlier in the year to distance itself from its original quirky approach and promote a more modern, adult image.
While all these brands are well established, Tal Thomas, founder of Exotic Planet, is confident that the brand's super-premium image will give it an edge. A 250ml bottle of its pomegranate variant, for example, retails in Harvey Nichols at £5, well above the typical prices for a juice drink, but with it comes the mark of quality.
"It takes 37 pomegranates to make one litre of juice and each pomegranate takes 10 minutes to prepare," he says.
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