Smart hydration: PepsiCo rolls out SodaStream Professional

22 Jun 2020 --- PepsiCo is expanding its SodaStream brand into away-from-home channels with the introduction of SodaStream Professional, marketed as an eco-friendly hydration platform. Following a pilot, the mobile-enabled platform will allow people to personalize and digitally track their beverage intake while cutting back on plastic bottles. The product taps into the customizable beverage trends and will be rolled out in the fall.

SodaStream Professional builds upon PepsiCo’s SodaStream – an at-home sparkling water maker acquired by PepsiCo in 2018 and growing rapidly in the US – by bringing customizable beverages to workplaces, college campuses and airports. With the new platform ecosystem, users can choose from various unsweetened flavors, carbonation levels and temperatures to create their ideal beverage.

Functionalities of the product also allow consumers to record their favorite drink combinations, set hydration goals and track how many plastic bottles they have saved to date, through the accompanying SodaStream Connect mobile app. By delivering on these key trends, PepsiCo is tapping into the customizable beverage trend.

“SodaStream Professional offers a unique way for consumers to personalize great-tasting hydration and reduce single-use packaging at the same time,” says Scott Finlow, CMO of PepsiCo Foodservice. “We’re thrilled to bring these hallmarks of the SodaStream brand to channels outside the home for the first time.”

SodaStream Professional was developed to create a platform intentionally crafted with the modern consumer in mind. The “intuitive” user experience and physical look and feel integrates into users’ daily routine, making it easy and exciting to hydrate. With a sophisticated and inviting design inspired by contemporary furniture, the platform re-imagines hydration equipment to blend into and enhance the physical environment around it.

The new launch is the latest innovation in PepsiCo's “Beyond the Bottle” portfolio, which plays a critical role in helping PepsiCo make progress toward its vision of a world where plastics need never become waste. PepsiCo is focused on reducing the amount of plastic it uses, increasing recycling rates and recycled material in its packaging, and reinventing packaging.

Through the company’s growth of its SodaStream business, an estimated 67 billion single-use plastic bottles will be avoided through 2025. The rollout of SodaStream Professional builds on this commitment, which includes reducing virgin plastic use across its beverage portfolio by 35 percent by 2025, PepsiCo-branded LIFEWTR moving to 100 percent rPET in the US by the end of 2020, and bubly eliminated plastic bottles as of January 2020.

Smart hydration has been having a moment in the beverage sector. In this space, Danone’s Spanish natural mineral water brand Font Vella introduced a cap device that tracks water intake and instructs people toward adequate hydration. Coach20 is developed in partnership with smart packaging start-up water.io.

Edited by Benjamin Ferrer