A relative of mine who lives in a small town in New Hampshire of all places, sent me the following text:
“I was just at the grocery store. Up front where the checkout lines are there are always smallish refrigerators from coke or Odwalla juices or whoever today I saw a new one from Celsius today.”
I thought it was worth reporting as it shows how Celsius is really spreading out all over, even to small town New Hampshire 
Saul
In big towns I stopped to fill up with gas yesterday and the gas station store (modern and mostly what you expect from a modern gas station these days including walk in beer freezer) had one refrigerator section for energy drinks. In that refrigerator we’re 5 or 7 shelves. On the top was all Red Bull. The bottom two shelves were Celsius. There were no other brands of energy drink.
I found that definitely something to notice anecdotally to place things in context. Is this becoming a trend? Also, more shelf space for Celsius to grab. And no other brand offered.
I don’t drink energy drinks. But I do like to invest in up coming winners. So for whatever this observation is worth. This is in Atlanta metro area in a well to do region off a major highway exit. Wonder if others have seen similar.
Don’t try to hard to find it. Either it is or is not. If you have to try too hard to find it then it is not.
Tinker
After dog walk today I went into the leading gas/convenience shop chain in the area, QT. they had 4 refrigerators full of energy drinks and at maybe 8 or 10 brands. Of these Red Bull and Monster each had nearly a refrigerator to themselves (not quite but say 80% of their fridges). Of the other brands from Starbucks to C4 and others I don’t remember Celsius was in there with two shelves, but near the bottom of the same fridge where C4 has two shelves but at the top of the fridge.
Just to put this anecdotal observation into fair context. Celsius had no special place in this store’s offerings and in fact one might think that C4 (being on top) stood out as the #3 drink in the store. Below C4 were at least 4 shelves (perhaps 5) and a different brand had the two shelves below C4 and then Celsius the two shelves below that brand.
This is a far larger merchant with QTs everywhere and superior interiors. They even have peppermint (as one of multiple flavor choices) expresso flavor. So this is a large and comprehensive operation.
Anecdotally whatever it is worth. Celsius may be gaining shelf space in smaller merchants and less so with larger accounts. Is what I take from this small sample size.
So go to see Celsius in these places it’s
gaining traction but let’s not assume Celsius is dominating the world yet. My son in fact drinks C4 and has never had a Celsius.
However, it also shows how much shelf space Celsius still has to take away and grow, should it remain the next grest branded drink.
Tinker
Further information from New Hampshire:
“The store is called Market Basket and they have about 95 stores in New England”
Not a huge chain, but not a Mom and Pop single store either.
Saul
With some experience as a soft drink peddler to retail outlets in college, shelf space is authorized by the retailer (except when the peddler can silently steal some from a competitor) and is totally driven out of sales volume. The retailer does not want his shelves to become empty and doesn’t want to be forced to spend the labor filling his shelves from the back room often. Vendors failing to get free additional volume driven shelf space in the retailers’ coolers, may make the expensive route to offer the retailer a “non-volume” driven decision to offering free coolers as a means of convincing retailers to give them more exposure before their sales volumes “require” it. In years past before the birth of convenience stores, soft drink mfrs spent the money for machines dispensing bottles for 10 cents, but this was prior to the time when retailers aisles were lined with coolers. In general, in more recent years, company supplied coolers are an indication public interest in the product is insufficient in a particular retailer to earn shelf space on its own. I am long Celsius because of its demonstrated growth, ignoring the commentary on the cooler program.
Remember, Celsius has a partnership with Pepsi, so we would expect some display benefit from that. Maybe even a takeover some day.