As many CPG brands struggle with slipping unit sales among widespread inflation, Monster Beverage Corp. is bucking the trend and growing volume by balancing bold innovation that expands usage occasions and consumer appeal while reinforcing – not replacing – its core portfolio.
“The energy category is driven by innovation. It is significantly a key driver for the consumer in that category. They are expecting it. As you hear us say, they have an insatiable desire for new,” Rob Gehring, chief growth officer at Monster Beverage Corp., told investment analysts yesterday at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference.
And while Monster Beverage, along with its competitors, strives to meet this demand, he added: “One of the key things, or differentiator that sets us apart at Monster Energy, is our goal is always use innovation as a complement to our core business.”
He explained: “If it is not bringing the core with it, it is coming at the risk of cannibalizing the core.”
While this may be a fair-trade off for some competitors, Monster Beverage prides itself on “growing the fan favorites,” said Guy Carling, president of EMEA and OSP. He added, “The core SKUs across our four brand platforms are seeing huge growth.”
For example, the company’s brand Ultra is growing 40-50% globally, and it is more than 10 years old, he said.
How does Monster balance innovation and core growth?
The key to driving growth from innovation and core simultaneously lies in Monster’s merchandising standards, said Gehring.
“How we execute it in the store, how we display it, how we market it,” must be sustainable for Monster and its retailer partners. The key is supporting fan favorites that drive loyalty and repeat purchase, while using innovation to attract new consumers and encourage trial.
He explained that as excited as the company is about new products, innovation is only one tool in the company’s toolbox.
“We want to stick with what we are doing, because we believe it drives and earns share,” he said. “It doesn’t rent share.”
That said, the company “believes wholeheartedly in the innovation pipeline,” he added, stressing the company’s 2026 innovation calendar is “best” he has “ever seen from a company in my career.”
The 2026 innovation pipeline
In keeping with the company’s ethos of balancing old and new, the 2026 lineup includes iterations of the proven – including “a balance of zero-calorie offerings” – and something “we have not historically done,” including offering LTOs, which have “worked successfully in the category,” Gehring said.
He explained this summer the company will launch its first ever limited-timing offering to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary.
Another strategy that Monster is borrowing from other category players is courting female consumers, who have not been a traditional target demographic but with which competitors are making inroads.
The company’s new FLRT Energy is set to debut early next year and will include four fruity flavors, no-sugar and other ingredients it says it believes will appeal to female shoppers, such as those that boost collagen or support immunity, skin and hair health.
The new line hits all the main reasons consumers come to the company’s other energy brands: functionality, image or lifestyle and diverse usage occasions.
It also underscores the broad appeal of energy drinks now.
“Thirty years ago, [energy drinks] started off in a bar with vodka and it has broadened every year, every decade and evolved into an everyday, mainstream beverage,” Carling said.
“Something that was once niche and pigeonholed … is now drunk 24/7 in every single day part – morning, evening, night – in multiple usage occasions: from gaming, with food, in the gym, to pick-you-up and on-the-go,” he added.
Ultimately, by combining innovation that excites new consumers with fan-favorite products that drive loyalty, Monster offers a blueprint for growth in a category where many brands struggle with unit volume and inflation pressures.
