Dive Brief:
- Pyure is giving much larger competitors a run for their money in the stevia-based sweeteners market — a competitive edge the company attributes to Amazon’s online platform and its “real-time” way of doing business, according to Food Navigator-USA.
- According to the brand, while sales of big brands like Truvia and PureVia have remained relatively flat, Pyure is growing 50% year-over-year with the startup’s revenues quickly approaching $20 million.
- Sales are up 30% year-over-year at the company’s biggest retail customer, Walmart. And Pyure says it’s seeing “phenomenal growth” at Amazon, which is quickly becoming its second biggest customer.
Dive Insight:
Health trends are driving consumers toward healthy, better-for-you food and beverage products that contain less sugar and artificial sweeteners. The Food and Drug Administration will require food manufacturers to include how many grams of added sugars are in packaged foods and drinks as part of a redesigned nutrition facts label, but the deadline to use the label has not been announced.
Still, consumers will look to indulge their sweet tooth by other means, seeking out brands that offer healthier alternatives to sugary household staples. Manufacturers such as Pyure have been quick to bring different stevia-based products to the market as sugar falls out of consumer favor.
Some of the brand’s impressive growth is because the company has such a small sales base to start with. The percentage growth figures are expected to moderate as the company gets bigger.
But there’s more to the story. Pyure is making many of the right moves to capture consumer attention and sales, especially in the way it is leveraging Amazon, social media, YouTube, and other digital marketing to develop strong brand recognition. When the brand found some retailers less than receptive to devoting increasing shelf space to a startup like Pyure, it took matters into its own hands.
Pyure proactively chose to gain ground with Amazon and took some measured and appropriate steps. Rather than relying on a traditional marketing approach — with print and TV advertising and coupons — the company launched a full-on digital campaign to gain brand recognition, attract consumer attention — particularly among the younger demographic it targets — and generate positive ratings and reviews. These move it up the search and placement rankings on Amazon.
The company is proving to be a success story of how a small challenger brand can focus investment on creating a top-notch website and leverage social media marketing to capture a target audience and win sales. Pyure could prove to be a good case study for other brands — both big names looking to reinvent themselves as well as startup brands.