National Beverage Corp
National Beverage Corp. proudly refreshes America with a distinctive portfolio
of Sparkling Waters, Juices, Energy Drinks and Carbonated Soft Drinks. We believe
our ingenious product designs, innovative packaging and imaginative flavors,
along with our corporate culture and philosophy, makes National Beverage unique
in the beverage industry. The Company’s primary market focus is the United
States, but our products are also distributed in various other countries. National
Beverage Corp. was incorporated in Delaware in 1985 and began trading as a public
company on the NASDAQ Stock Market in 1991.
National Beverage is in an ongoing transition to meet the healthy hydration
demands of the American consumer. Health and wellness awareness has increased
significantly, resulting in growing demand for beverages with little or no calories
and wholesome natural ingredients. Our brands emphasize distinctly-flavored
beverages in attractive packaging that appeal to multiple demographic groups.
The attentive, conscious and discriminating consumer is ever more alert to healthy
choices and better-for-you ingredients that align to this transition and strategic
focus.
We believe the combination of our business strategies and philosophies is key
to greater competitive advantage and differentiation from competitors. Points
of differentiation include the following:
Healthy Transformation – We focus on developing healthier beverages in
response to the global shift in consumer buying habits. We are committed to
tailoring the variety and types of beverages in our portfolio to satisfy the
preferences of a diverse mix of ‘crossover consumers’ – a
growing group desiring a change to better-for-you beverages.
Flavor Innovation – Throughout our product lines and brands, we emphasize
distinctly flavored beverages. Building on a rich tradition of flavor and brand
innovation with over a 125 year history of development with iconic brands such
as Shasta® and Faygo®, we consider ourselves a leader in flavor and
essence technology. Proprietary flavors and essences are developed and tested
in-house and only made commercially available after extensive concept and sensory
evaluation. Our variety of flavors provides us a unique advantage with today’s
consumers who demand variety and refreshing beverage alternatives.
Quality Ethic – We believe consumers demand quality, and we are committed
to producing and developing products of the highest quality that also appeal
to the value expectations of the consumer. We believe we can leverage our efficient
production and distribution systems, and our cost-effective social media and
regionally focused marketing programs, to profitably deliver products at optimal
consumer price-points.
Creative Dynamics – In a beverage industry that is dominated by the “cola
giants”, we pride ourselves on our ability to respond faster and more
creatively to consumer trends than competitors who are burdened by production
and distribution complexity as well as legacy costs. The ability to identify
consumer trends and create new product concepts to lead the market defines our
new product development model. Speed to market with the right concept, unique
flavor creation and trend forward ‘better-for-you’ continues to
be our goal. As with flavor development, internal development teams are responsible
for concept creation, packaging and design, which allows for rapid ‘go
to market’ timing and reduced development costs.
We employ a philosophy that emphasizes vertical integration; our production
model integrates the procurement of raw materials and crafting of concentrates
with the production of finished products. Our twelve strategically located production
facilities are near major metropolitan markets across the continental United
States. The locations of our facilities enable us to efficiently produce and
distribute beverages to substantially all geographic markets in the United States,
including the top 25 metropolitan statistical areas. Each facility is generally
equipped to produce both canned and bottled beverage products in a variety of
package sizes. We utilize numerous package types and sizes, including cans ranging
from eight to sixteen ounces and bottles ranging from ten ounces to three liters.
We believe that the innovative and controlled vertical integration of our bottling
facilities provides an advantage over certain of our competitors that rely upon
independent third party bottlers to manufacture and market their products. Since
we control the national production, distribution and marketing of our brands,
we believe we can more effectively manage product quality and customer service
and respond quickly to changing market conditions.
We produce a substantial portion of the flavor concentrates used in our branded
products. By controlling our own formulas throughout our bottling network, we
can craft our products in accordance with uniform quality standards while tailoring
flavors to regional taste preferences. We believe that the combination of a
Company-owned bottling network, together with uniform standards for packaging,
formulations and customer service, provides us with a strategic advantage in
servicing national retailers and mass-merchandisers. We also maintain research
and development laboratories at multiple locations. These laboratories continually
test products for compliance with our strict quality control standards as well
as conduct research for new products and flavors.