Every year, 15,000 new food products launch, but 90 percent of them fail within the first 12 months. One strategy that food entrepreneurs use to get a leg up is buying defunct brands that have long been phased out and relaunching them under new management. Take the case of Slice soda, which was discontinued by Pepsi more than two decades ago but relaunched in January by the organic juice company Suja Life. The company had been trying to find an angle into the sparkling beverage space without having to start at zero. Slice’s brand awareness is at 50 percent among those age 35 to 44, and even if the new formulation has nothing to do with the old Pepsi beverage, that’s a decent head start. Slice isn’t even the only example in the beverage aisle: Odwalla (discontinued by Coca-Cola in 2020) was acquired by Jumex, a Mexico-based manufacturer. The 1980s and ’90s energy drink staple Jolt is also heading back to shelves following its 2009 bankruptcy after Redcon1 acquired its license. Reminds me, one of these days I need to talk to a mouse about some significant digits.
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