Top Five Fastest Growing Beverage Companies in 2022

Whether it’s coffee, tea, soda, beer or water, consumers have been finding ways to quench their thirst for centuries, making the beverage industry both timeless and recession-proof. The reliability of the industry, as well as the constant demand, has helped create some of the world’s most valuable and fastest growing beverage companies.

As a forever evolving category, most beverage companies focus on ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. Several ways to stand out in the crowded market include innovation, demand planning and sometimes, mergers and acquisitions. In a post-pandemic world, the fastest growing beverage companies must also keep up with the new trends that formed over the last few years.

The beverage industry comprises both small start-up businesses and employs countless people including those on the front and back ends. Including the alcoholic beverage space, the US beverage industry is valued at $146 billion and the global market is valued at $1.5 trillion as of 2019. Here are the five fastest growing beverage companies in 2022.

1. PepsiCo

When analyzed by net revenue, PepsiCo is the largest food and beverage company in North America and the third largest beverage firm globally. Founded in 1965, PepsiCo generates roughly $66.415 billion in revenue annually, earning it the title of the fastest growing beverage company. This can be partly attributed to its diversification into food and snacks.

In addition to its ownership of beverage brands such as Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Gatorade, it also owns the Frito-Lay snack brand and Quaker Foods. Snack foods have outperformed sodas in recent years, giving Pepsi an advantage over pure-play soda companies like Coke. Quaker has given the company additional exposure to the supermarket channel, which has thrived during the pandemic.

2. Coca-Cola

PepsiCo’s chief rival, Coca-Cola, is much more than its namesake soda. Current statistics show that within the US, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is the fastest-growing soft drink, increasing 11.5 percent in retail value and eight percent in volume in 2019. Coca-Cola owns a wide range of brands, including Minute Maid, Powerade and a stake in Monster Beverage.

Recently, Coca-Cola has stepped up its efforts to diversify, acquiring Costa Coffee for $5 billion in 2019, as well as a slew of other acquisitions since then. However, the company has struggled during the pandemic as restaurant sales lagged, but its distribution network and marketing prowess is unmatched.

3. Monster Beverage

Monster Beverage has been one of the fastest growing beverage companies on the market since its initial public offering (IPO) in 1992 and has been up more than 200,000 percent since then. The company was rated among the leading beverage companies worldwide in 2020, generating net sales amounting to about $4.6 billion.

Ranked 11^th on Forbes’ World’s Most Innovative Companies list in 2018, the brand’s key focus lies on energy drinks. One of its signature brands, Monster Energy, generated sales amounting to about $3.24 billion in 2021 and was ranked as the second leading US energy drink brand, following only Red Bull. Based on US dollar sales, the Monster Energy brand had a market share of 23.2 percent in 2021.

4. Celsius Holdings

While its name may not be as familiar as Monster Beverage, Celsius Holdings is the latest energy drink maker to capture investor attention. Founded in April, 2004, the brand became known for its sparkling and non-carbonated beverages, which contain no preservatives, no aspartame, no high fructose corn syrup, is non-GMO and has no added sodium.

On the financial side, the company’s sales jumped over 1,000 percent last year on the back of breakout growth. Unlike the other fastest growing beverage companies, Celsius Holdings’ growth seemed to be aided by the pandemic since it found success in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel. Through the first three quarters of 2020, revenue jumped 86 percent to $51 million.

5. Boston Beer Company

The list of fastest growing beverage companies would be incomplete without an alcoholic beverage maker. Boston Beer Company has been around since 1984 and is the parent company to Samuel Adams, Dogfish Head, Truly Hard Seltzer, Twisted Tea, Angry Orchard Hard Cider and several other alcoholic beverage brands.

Boston Beer Company’s sales have grown in recent years, thanks in large part to the success of the Truly Hard Seltzer brand, which holds the second-largest market share of 26 percent in the fast growing alcohol category. Strength in the Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea brands helped drive revenue up 39 percent to $1.7 billion in 2020.