For much of its 92-year history, the venerable V8 was synonymous with its iconic red vegetable juice. Now, as the brand looks to reach younger consumers and increase its consumption among existing shoppers, V8 is stepping up its pace of innovation by entering buzzier beverage categories.
The Campbell’s Company, which acquired V8 in 1948, is aggressively innovating to extend the brand into new formats such as energy and cocktails. The shift has minimized V8’s dependence on its core vegetable juice, with V8 Red accounting for only about half of the brand’s sales.
“We’re blurring category lines, looking for adjacencies to unlock pockets of growth,” Prabha Cheemalapati, Campbell’s vice president of beverages, said in an interview. “We have an opportunity here to sort of tap into trends that we see within the marketplace.”
V8’s untapped potential hasn’t gone unnoticed by top executives at Campbell’s.
For a while, the company did not prioritize V8 compared to some of its other brands, said Mick Beekhuizen, who became Campbell’s CEO in February after running the company’s $5.3 billion meals and beverages division.
“As we move forward, we have reactivated resources and focus on this very relevant and unique business,” Beekhuizen told analysts. We “continue to look for stepped-up marketing and innovation as we enable V8 to be a solid contributor to our growth going forward.”
V8 traces its roots to 1933 when W.G. Peacock and his son created the beverage in Illinois to bring affordable, vegetable nutrition to more consumers. Campbell’s purchased the beverage 15 years later.
Since then, V8 has carved out “a distinctive clear space” in the beverage aisle with attributes that stand out, especially among today’s health-minded consumers, Cheemalapati said.
Its iconic red juice, for example, is loaded with eight fruits and vegetables, and the tomato base forms a savory profile, a departure from the sugar-laden products that typically populate the juice category.
It took Campbell’s several years to begin seriously innovating V8, which had been overshadowed by other parts of the food giant’s portfolio, including its namesake soup, Goldfish crackers and Prego sauces. The first major extension came in 2011, when the New Jersey company launched V8 Energy, an offering that has steadily grown since its launch.
Campbell’s expanded V8’s shelf-stable juice lineup four years later with Vegetable and Fruit Juice Beverages made with ingredients such as yellow carrots, sweet potatoes, pineapples and spinach.
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Courtesy of Campbell’s
More recently, Campbell’s has looked to reach consumers using V8 at home as an ingredient in Bloody Mary drinks. In October, it partnered with pickle maker Grillo’s to launch a Bloody Mary mix, and two months later joined with cocktail brand Spritz Society on a Bloody Mary Spritz.
“It’s been a really impactful year where we’ve seen pretty significant growth in, I’ll call it, baseline performance across a number of pieces of the portfolio,” Cheemalapati said. “That’s sort of proof that the things we’re doing are driving an impact or engaging consumers in the way that we’d like to.”
V8 is “on track to deliver a strong year,” according to the company, with Campbell’s aiming for $1 billion in sales for the brand in the next few years.
Campbell’s also has devoted more resources to innovating through limited-time items for its energy line and tapping into trends like Hot Honey and Spicy for its core V8.
“I’m a big believer in having a little fun and showing up where your consumers might be a little bit surprised to see you kind of playing around with your brand and flavor profiles,” Cheemalapati said.
The offerings not only promote the versatility of the brand but draw in new consumers. V8 has typically reached an older consumer base of 45 years and older. The recent spate of product launches has helped attract a younger demographic, the company said.
Campbell’s plans to bring V8 into new categories in 2025, including offerings that “aren’t ready to drink,” Cheemalapati said, declining to offer specifics.
