Favorites are personal, but nothing beats the hard reality of sales figures. IRI last week revealed its annual New Product Pacesetters, the best-selling new products of 2012. It’s always difficult to throw a ring around this group, to come up with just a trend or two to explain what always is a disparate collection of stars. But I see a lot of novelty in there – frozen cocktails in pouches, water-flavoring drops, self-inflating popcorn bowls, K-cups and – are you tired of it yet? – Greek yogurt.
Don’t try guessing from those vague descriptions. The new product leaders are:
1. Dannon Oikos $283.8 million
2. Starbucks K-Cups $198.9
3. Bud Light Platinum $162.2
4. TruMoo $158.3
5. Breyers Blasts! $147.3
6. MiO $127.6
7. Sparkling ICE $122.7
8. Nature Valley Protein Bars $95.7
9. Orville Redenbacher’s Pop Up Bowl $92.1
10. Daily’s Frozen Pouches $89.2
Those figures are in millions of dollars and were counted in traditional grocery, drug and mass market retailers, as well as dollar and club stores, Walmart and military commissaries. Not convenience stores, which creates a separate list.
IRI’s been doing this for years. They start tracking an apparent rising star once it’s reached 30 percent penetration across the country. Then the clock starts ticking to count the products “year-one” of national sales. So some may have been introduced in late 2011, but all completed a full year of sales in calendar 2012.
A deeper dive on this list is one of the features in our May issue. And will be on our website shortly.
