[/floatr]Business Week: In Japan, Soft Drinks to Cure Any Ailment
Kozo Toyoda, a 55-year-old yakitori restaurant owner in Tokyo's Koto ward, says he hopes he can shed a few pounds by drinking a diet-assisting tea....Japan's $48-billion-a-year soft drink industry, second in size only to that of the U.S., is increasingly looking to consumers like Toyoda. Stymied by a shrinking -- not to mention graying -- population, drink sales in 2007 dipped 0.5% despite around 1,500 new teas, juices, and other drinks making their debut every year. Prices have barely risen in a decade, hurting earnings and forcing companies to conjure up increasingly innovative marketing ideas...Yet amid the gloom, one segment of Japan's beverage market is booming: drinks that offer health benefits. With soda sales flat, beverage companies are flooding the market with a spectacular array of new products that offer far more than simple refreshment. There are teas, such as Kao's Healthya Ryokucha, a green tea, which are touted as slimming, and vitamin drinks packed with 2000mg of vitamin C, equivalent to 20 lemons, that are meant to ward off colds. For the beauty-conscious, there are bihade, or beautiful skin, drinks containing collagen and hyaluronan, while Kirin's Sapli, launched this month, claims to wards off constipation...more...
