Following steady performance in 2012, beer sales are proving to be a bright spot in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) market.

Taking into account outside elements like economic challenges, environmental hurdles and trepidatious consumers, consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers have a number of things to consider when it comes to developing new products.

Anheuser Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev, will nationally launch 11.5-ounce reclosable aluminum bottles for its Bud Light Platinum beer later this year.

Chicago-based market research firm Information Resources Inc. (IRI), formerly SymphonyIRI Group, released its list of 2012 New Product Pacesetters. These 200 top-selling consumer packaged goods (CPG) launches, which represent 11 percent of the 1,900 CPG brands that hit the market in 2011 and 2012, each captured more than $13 million in their first year of sales in traditional grocery, drug and mass market retailers, dollar and club channels, and military commissaries, with an individual average of $39.5 million in first-year revenues.

Anheuser-Busch (A-B), the St. Louis-based subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B InBev), announced the expansion of Bud Light Platinum production to its St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio, breweries as well as plans to add its Fort Collins, Colo., brewery in June. The production expansion will keep up with demand for the new product that launched early this year and is outpacing expectations, the company said in a statement.