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LaCroix sales are "effectively in free fall," wrote Laurent Grandet, Beverage Industry Analyst at Guggenheim Partners, in a report released Thursday.
Sales of the Seltzer brand reportedly fell 15% in May after falling 7% in April, 5% in March and 6% in February. The stock price of La Croix's parent company, National Beverage, fell 10% this week and 62% since last September.
Grandet's analysis of the situation is dramatic, noting that "the LaCroix brand has become increasingly disastrous in a relatively short period of time".
But this is not a mystery why: There are now unlimited options for Seltz, and most of them do not come from companies fighting a scandal after another.
The LaCroix brand is over 30 years old and its popularity is no longer to be demonstrated in the Midwest. By 2015, as Libby Nelson of Vox and Javier Zarracina report, his retro aesthetic and his amusing brand image earned him a whole new audience:
Long before the birth of girls wearing the LaCroixs Over Boys t-shirt this summer, LaCroix was loved by health-conscious, budget-conscious women in Central America. They knew a good thing when they found it and they were a loyal public. But most of the trends are in the Midwest, not the other way around, and the first 30 years of LaCroix have been under the radar.
Then, in 2015, LaCroix – lightly flavored sugar-free sparkling water and wrapped in a screamy tin can – became an unexpected success. The New York Times has published an essay on this subject. The Awl and Time Out New York have rated its flavors. If you say "LaCroix" to a young urban professional, get ready for an explosion of enthusiasm, as if you had shaken a can of sparkling water.
Of course, the success of LaCroix has led to competition. Everyone wanted a little of the Seltz salt market – or a "throat share" as the term in the beverage industry, which I would not like to know.
In 2017, Coca-Cola bought trendy fashion brand Topo Chico sparkling water (very popular for a long time in the southern United States, especially among urban youth). Pepsi launched its own brand of sparkling water Bubly, and Spindrift, more tasty, won the favor of the same demographics that had made LaCroix a fad. Seltzer evolves – you can buy it infused with alcohol or CBD. The millennia that have energetically adopted LaCroix's normcore aesthetic have moved on (or back to) the classic Polar.
LaCroix does not evolve, according to the Guggenheim analyst, and is in fact quite poorly managed. On the one hand, he is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit. While LaCroix stands as "all natural", the plaintiffs argue that it contains artificial ingredients, "including linalool, used as an insecticide against cockroaches". (Linalool, while not necessarily natural, is found in 63 different spices and is commonly used in and beverages, according to the National Institutes of Health.) The company's official response to this lawsuit included tweets storms asking for to his customers to help him.
"We are proud to serve LaCroix to our families, hospitals and schools," says @lacroixwater. tweeted. "Please, stay with us to defend our dear LaCroix."
It was shortly after Nick Caporella, CEO of an 83-year-old 83-year-old billionaire, was charged with sexual misconduct by two pilots who had worked in the plane of the United States. company. Both said he had improperly touched them during dozens of robberies. LaCroix's response to this legal problem was also strange: a company press release with the word "NEWS" written on top with the superimposed American flag, which called the "pilots stories" the word "defamation" without any corroborating information other than a quote from a board member who said, "I have known Nick for over 40 years and I find these allegations incredulous."
Last March, when National Beverage released a report on third quarter results for 2018, it did so with this largely commented explanation:
"We are really sorry for the results shown above. Neglect, mismanagement or lamentable acts of God were not the reasons – it was largely the result of an injustice! … Managing a brand is not so different from taking care of someone who becomes disabled. "
(One interviewer told Vox: "What he was saying is that the caring care provided to a person with special needs is what he does every day with the right person. business. ") All of this is above Caporella's political preoccupations. The ramblings, which are usually almost impossible to analyze, but sometimes involve metaphors elaborated on the many failures of Barack Obama.
Although LaCroix has long described his clients as "our cult," he does not seem to have as much fidelity as she believed.
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