In just five years, and after a corporate revamp, TalkingRain's Sparkling Ice beverage brand has grown exponentially. CEO Kevin Klock tells Fortune how the company pulled it off.
FORTUNE -- "You need the moon and stars to align to get growth like
this." That's what Kevin Klock, chief executive officer of beverage
company TalkingRain, told Fortune on Wednesday.
In this scenario, the two things that lined up just right were
Klock's management of TalkingRain's Sparkling Ice brand and consumers'
changing drinking habits. The end result was the $337 million in sales
that Sparkling Ice – a zero calorie, carbonated water that comes in 17
flavors – recorded in the 12 months ending in April 2014, according to
IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm, up from $2.7 million in 2009.
It was the second-highest grossing sparkling water company, behind only
Nestle.
If you haven't heard of TalkingRain or Sparkling Ice, that's not
surprising. The company, which still has fewer than 300 employees, was
founded in Seattle in 1992, and up until a few years ago, its products
and customers had been isolated in the Northwest.
Prior to 2010, the company was made up of a mishmash of brands:
sparkling spring water Essence, flavored flat water Twist, and
vitamin-enriched Active Water all stood alongside Sparking Ice. None of
them were selling all that well.
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