Let there be gas: Baltika may launch the soda brand "Vododa Gosudareva"
Baltika is expanding its presence in the mineral water market. The company may start producing soda soda "Vododa Gosudareva" — it has submitted a corresponding trademark application to Rospatent, Izvestia has learned. This will be the third brand of water that the brewing company has launched on the market in the last two years. Baltika is diversifying its product portfolio amid growing demand for bottled water. In 2024, soft drinks became the fastest growing category among consumer goods, according to Nielsen.
Why is the company entering new markets
On November 14, the Baltika Brewing Company filed an application for registration of the trademark "Gosudarev's Water" according to the 32nd class of the International Classification of Goods and Services (ICTS) - for carbonated and mineral water, as well as formulations for the production of carbonated water, follows from an extract from Rospatent. The company is considering "various options to expand its product range," a Baltika representative told Izvestia, declining to comment further.
The company is already a multi-category beverage manufacturer, said Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics. Her portfolio includes Flash Up energy, functional products, and two packaged drinking water brands, he listed. In February, Baltika launched the Skalla mineral water brand. The source is located in Karachay-Cherkessia, and the water is bottled at a plant in Rostov-on-Don. At the end of March, the company launched the production of drinking artesian water at a plant in Yaroslavl with a capacity of 20,000 bottles per hour under the Khrustalnaya brand. Investments in the project amounted to 120 million rubles, the company reported.
Baltika is one of the largest producers of beer and soft drinks in Russia. The company's production capacity is 52 million barrels of beer per month (about 620 million barrels per year). The portfolio includes 50 national and regional beer brands (Baltika, Nevsky, Arsenalnoye, Yarpivo, Don, and others). Baltika operates eight plants in different cities of Russia, including Voronezh, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg.
In July 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the transfer of Baltika to the temporary management of the Federal Property Management Agency. In December 2024, by presidential decree, Baltika's assets were removed from temporary management, and in February 2025, Carlsberg Group sold the Russian company for almost 2.3 billion Danish crowns (about $320 million) to VG Invest, whose beneficiaries were not disclosed.
How is this market changing
Packaged water has become one of the drivers of the consumer goods (FMCG) market in recent years, said Alla Andreeva, CEO of Soyuznapitka. This is due to the increasing trend towards a healthy lifestyle, she explains. This trend is most pronounced in large cities with an active urban population. Against this background, companies are paying increased attention to this category of products by launching their own projects in packaged water, she notes.
In 2024, soft drinks (sodas, energy drinks, drinking water, fruit juices, iced tea) became the fastest growing category in the FMCG segment, Nielsen calculated. In monetary terms, their sales increased by 26.4%, in physical terms — by 14.1%. The share of such drinks in the structure of the omnichannel market (the analysis covers 150 retail chains and 50 online platforms) reached 11.1% - 0.6 percentage points more than in 2023, according to the data of the analytical company.
Water under the Skalla and Khrustalnaya brands is bottled in PET, is in the same price segment of 50 rubles and is almost not supported by advertising, said Alexey Fadeev, partner, creative director of Depot branding agency. According to him, the new brand "Voda Gosudareva" is perceived as a contender for premium. Therefore, it makes sense for Baltika to enter a different price segment and a new packaging format — made of glass, the expert added.
Alla Andreeva agrees that one of the strategies for "entering" the packaged water market may be to launch a product with a segmented target audience. According to her, such a product can be positioned as a premium product or aimed at a narrow target audience, for example, people who are interested in sports, the expert said. This allows the company to enter the niche in a balanced manner and analyze the prospects for the brand's development in the future, added Alla Andreeva.
At the same time, the premium segment is about conspicuous consumption and a "long strategy," Alexey Fadeev noted. According to him, this requires systemic and long-term investments.
In addition, the company may try to influence consumers in the economy segment through patriotism by offering them a premium-sounding product at a low price with an appropriate design, Alexei Fadeev argues. According to him, in this concept, a wide range of products can be produced under the Gosudarev Water brand, from drinking water to carbonated drinks. At the same time, the tastes and history of the brand should convincingly play out the Russian character and proximity to "their" consumer, he said.
By the end of 2025, the soft drinks market (excluding bottled water) will decrease by about 0.7% in annual terms, to 9.15 billion liters, and in monetary terms it will grow by 15%, to 1.02 trillion rubles, Infoline estimates. In January – October, the production of packaged mineral and drinking water (without sugar) amounted to 19.9 billion bottles (0.5 liters), which is 2.1% less than in the same period a year earlier, according to Rosstat data.
The interest of brewing companies in the soft drinks and packaged water market will increase, Alla Andreeva believes. In the future, we should expect the launch of new products from other companies, she admitted.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
