Gatorade invented hydration drinks. Now it’s fighting to own them again
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN
New York (CNN) — It’s not just hardcore athletes who want to stay hydrated, and that’s become a problem for Gatorade.
PepsiCo, which owns Gatorade, announced Thursday a sweeping makeover of the brand in response to increased competition. Changes include new drinks, powders and packaging that reinforce the brand’s science-backed roots and market it beyond its longtime identity as a sports drink.
The goal is to reinvent Gatorade beyond a sports drink and into a hydration brand enticing for everybody, Mike Del Pozzo, president of PepsiCo’s US beverage category, told CNN.
Gatorade invented the first, commercially available hydration drink more than six decades ago. But roughly 150 new brands have entered the hydration space since 2020, and their messaging — including Gatorade’s — has been “diluted and confusing” for consumers, said Del Pozzo.
The wave of competitors includes offerings from influencers Alex Cooper and Kylie Jenner as well as soccer star Leo Messi to growing upstarts like Electrolit and Liquid I.V. Plus, chief rival BodyArmor relaunched last year but has struggled with parent company Coca-Cola slashing the brand’s value twice since its 2021 acquisition.
They’re all tapping into the hydration craze that grew following the pandemic plus social media trends like the personalization water trend, aptly named #WaterTok, on TikTok. Electrolytes drinks are forecast to blossom from $40 billion last year to an $80 billion category by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
‘We got disrupted’
Gatorade remains the top-selling brand in hydration but has lost about 3% of its market share since 2021. As of 2025, it controls 60% of the category, according to research firm Numerator.
The slight drop shows how fragmented the category has become, since hydration is no longer exclusive to traditional sports drinks, said Howard Telford, who leads soft drinks research at Euromonitor.
Gatorade’s growth is being eroded by powders, electrolytes and coconut waters, plus high-end hydration drinks “that borrow the language of replenishment without leaning so heavily on overt sports positioning,” he told CNN. He added that the market is “being shaped by products that feel more portable, more personalized, more functional or more natural.”
On the last point, Gatorade is removing synthetic colors and dyes from its top three selling flavors (fruit punch, lemon lime and orange). Removing artificial ingredients makes nearly half of consumers more likely to buy the drink, Del Pozzo said. The drinks — zero sugar and regular — will roll out in the fourth quarter.
Del Pozzo said removing the dyes was an “incredibly difficult” change because it risks damaging Gatorade’s brand recognition. Shoppers might not recognize the drinks without their iconic bright colors, he added.
Another area of focus is Gatorade and sister brand Propel’s flavored powders, one of its fastest-growing businesses because of their portability.
“People forget we were the OGs in powders. That’s how (Gatorade) was invented. We got disrupted,” Del Pozzo said (namely by Unilever’s Liquid I.V., which generated $1 billion in revenue last year).
Also rolling out next year is a first-of-its-kind product called “Gatorlyte Longer Lasting,” which was developed after researchers identified an unusual consumer demand: people on long flights or with extended workdays, like teachers, who were avoiding drinking liquids so they wouldn’t have to use the toilet.
The new drink has electrolytes and uses a plant-based glycerin, which is an ingredient that helps the body retain and reabsorb water into cells, to keep consumers hydrated for significantly longer than a standard sports drink.
Attuned on affordability
In addition to new products, PepsiCo’s Del Pozzo is also working on pricing. The company cut prices on certain offerings, like multipacks, to “get more in line with what consumers would pay,” he said.
New drinks, like Gatorade Lower Sugar for example, sell for the same as flagship drinks, he said, adding that it’s also bringing back customers who might’ve switched their preferences to a rival.
The pricing changes follow a similar strategy at PepsiCo’s snack unit Frito-Lays, which slashed prices by 15% in March because of customer blowback. The drop in prices came after demands from activist investor Elliott Management, which built a $4 billion stake in the company last year.
Although Gatorade is a “major strategic asset” for PepsiCo, Telford said, a true turnaround for the brand stretches beyond reversing declining market share. Rather, he sees the revamp as an opportunity for the storied brand to prove it can grow in other areas of the market, such as with zero or lower sugar drinks and powders.
“It is no longer enough just to dominate the classic sports drink shelf,” he said.
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