The success of Apple, Microsoft, Google and the likes, can be attributed to the fact that their founders have “envisioned markets that do not yet exist and have staked them out ahead of the competition”. Those are the words of the late, great business thinker CK Prahalad. Well, it would seem that America’s food behemoth, Kraft Foods, has taken Prahalad’s advice to heart with its latest launch announced this week.

Kraft is hoping to make a big splash with an exciting new beverage concept, called MiO water flavouring, and which it believes will create a whole new beverage category. As this report in USA Today puts it: “Just when you figured there were no new ways left to tweak water, along comes Kraft with a product almost certain to raise eyebrows and seriously shake the $1-billion water flavouring category: liquid water enhancer. In March, Kraft Foods will rollout of MiO (“mine,” in Italian), a zero-calorie, concentrated line of liquid flavourings — from Berry Pomegranate to Strawberry Watermelon — sold in sleek bottles that look like palm-sized water droplets … ‘This is the next big thing,’ says Roxanne Bernstein, director of the MiO brand.”