Seven-Up Introduces Its Own Line of Lemonades

Seven-Up Co.’s Ventura-based citrus products division, which makes about 60% of all private-label frozen lemonade sold in grocery stores, is introducing its own line of lemonades called JuiceUp.

In a bid to invigorate the stagnant $125-million-a-year lemonade market, Seven-Up is offering the first diet frozen lemonade and lemon-limeade products and is backing all of its five new JuiceUp flavors with an advertising campaign on all three networks as well as in newspapers and magazines.

“The lemonade category is a category that’s been sitting there stagnant for several years,” said Dean E. Ulrich, vice president and general manager of the citrus products division. “But when we ran TV advertising (in test markets), we saw demand increase for all lemonade products. . . . Lemon-limeade sold as well as lemonade.”

Available in five flavors--lemonade, lemon-limeade, pink lemonade, diet lemonade and diet lemon-limeade--the 12-ounce cans of frozen JuiceUp sell for about 79 cents.

Lemonade has long been considered a seasonal product, with little consumer demand during the fall and winter. The market is now mostly dominated by private-label store brands and Minute Maid, which is marketed by Coca-Cola Co. But Seven-Up is hoping that the addition of real lemon juice (as opposed to lemon concentrate) as well as its two diet brands will help boost demand.