2021 Power 50: Ralph D. Crowley Jr.
Ralph D. Crowley Jr., president & CEO of Polar Beverages
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For a company nearly 140 years old, Polar Beverages is by no means resting on its laurels.
Ralph D. Crowley Jr. and his siblings have gone head-to-head with international beverage giants including Coca-Cola and Pepsi in a fight to keep its share of the ballooning seltzer market. A modernization change began a decade ago: the first seasonal flavors in 2011 and the Impossibly Good line aimed at the young consumers in 2015.
By 2019, Polar began working with the brewer Harpoon on a new line of hard seltzers. Coke and Pepsi aren’t going away – Polar lost its second-place market share to Pepsi’s Bubly in 2020, the same year Coke launched its own new selzer, Aha. But neither is the 700-employee Polar, which last year signed a long-term franchise agreement with Keurig Dr Pepper to take Polar’s distribution national.
Polar managed to be one of the country’s biggest seltzer sellers despite being only 35% of the market nationally until that deal, indicating just how much room left Polar has left to grow.
Crowley’s influence on Central Massachusetts extends beyond Polar, too. He became a part-owner of the Worcester Red Sox in 2019. And the team plays in, of course, Polar Park.
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