Suero Oral® is a functional beverage containing electrolytes that replenish the body’s fluids lost either through exertion or through fever or vomiting due to illness. It is based on a traditional Latin American home remedy used by generations of mothers to treat their children losing fluids due to illness, as its name, which translates as “oral serum,” suggests.

Since 1999, Suero Oral Inc. has sold this product across the United States, targeting the Hispanic market through small bodegas and grocery stores. It is still popular for its traditional medicinal use for children, but is also used extensively by agricultural and construction workers and other laborers who work in heat-intensive conditions and become dehydrated. Today, Suero Oral products are sold in all 50 states and are also exported throughout the Caribbean and to Asia.

In recent years the company has found that the product also appeals to a newer market segment: a younger, more urban population of athletes and exercise enthusiasts who deplete body fluids and critical electrolytes fluids while playing in sports events or working out.

Going Smaller

Recognizing this diverging market appeal is one factor that led Suero Oral Inc., which has sold its thirteen flavors of the product in 1 liter and 500ml bottles since its founding, to evaluate the potential impact of adding beverage additive packaging to its product mix. “We have seen this category of packaging explode into the beverage market in the past three years,” says Chief Operating Officer Marc Perez.

“We were initially concerned that we would be cannibalizing our larger package sales by introducing this new type of packaging. But our market research indicated that the concentrated package would have a strong appeal to our new category of younger mobile customers without significantly affecting our existing customer base.”
—Marc Perez, COO, Suero Oral Inc.

The smaller packaging would also offer Suero Oral the opportunity to place its products in locations that would not accept the larger bottles, such as on store countertops and in convenience stores that were ideal locations to reach these younger, on-the-go customers. The additive package would let customers individualize the amount users dispensed to meet their personal taste and need, which would also appeal to this group.

The New Package

As it was evaluating the new package concept, Suero Oral also consulted with TricorBraun, which sources its traditional bottles, and which has also done its own research into the new additive packaging. But where Suero Oral’s research had been into the market, and involved talking with distributors and retailers, TricorBraun had conducted consumer focus groups in which it explored consumers’ preferences regarding the new packaging. It then used those results–including preferences for convenient size, dispensing functionality, and leak resistance–to create unique beverage additive package designs.

“This was an important decision for us,” Perez says. “In all, it was a 16-month process of evaluating the market and the package, re-formulating products to deliver the same result in a concentrated form, etc.“

From the additive bottle designs that TricorBraun had created, Suero Oral chose a fluid, subtly asymmetrical two-ounce squeeze bottle with a flip-top closure for its convenient size and dispensing functionality. Each bottle is decorated with a full body shrink sleeve label carrying an image that reflects the image on the larger bottle of the product.

The new additive packages were shipped to distributors in early May for placement in Suero Oral’s retail outlets. In response to suggestions from its retailers who viewed the new product packaging, it is being introduced in Hispanic retail outlets in a countertop display unit in addition to being available on shelves. While it is too early for retail sales results, Perez reports that both distributors and retailers were very positive about the new package and its prospects for success.

TricorBraun Design & Innovation Group is a business unit of TricorBraun, one of North America’s leading providers of bottles, jars, and other rigid packaging components. The Group’s primary mission is to design, engineer and manage the development, production and delivery of customized rigid packaging solutions for personal care, cosmetics, healthcare, food and beverages and industrial and household chemical products. It is supported by TricorBraun’s more than 40 offices globally, holding one of the largest inventories of rigid packaging components worldwide.

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