New soft drinks formats tempted cash-strapped consumers in 2011: Britvic
The Soft Drinks Report 2012 highlighted the launch of Pepsi 250ml cans and Levi Roots with Vimto’s flavoured fruit juices and carbonates as key trends that “created excitement, bringing something different to the shelves,” said Britvic.
The value of the take-home industry increased by 7% to reach £7bn (€8.3bn), driven by price increases and a rise in VAT but volume growth was down from 3% to 1%, according to the report based on Neilsen data.
However, Britvic warned that the “economic outlook continues to remain uncertain [with] consumer worries about debt and job security unlikely to go away in 2012.”
Top three
The top three producers, Coca-Cola Europe (CCE), Britvic and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), accounted for almost half of the total soft drinks market.
Coca-Cola was the driving force behind CCE’s 7% value growth, Pepsi and Robinsons powered Britvic’s 5% value increase, while Lucozade Energy provided a boost for GSK, which gained 4% in value terms.
Red Bull had a 10% value growth, placing it sixth in the supplier league table and Innocent increased 27% in value as it reduced the price and size of its smoothies.
Cola remained main soft drink, with a 22% value share of the take-home market as value rose 8% to £1.5bn and volume increased by 4%.
Pepsi recorded 10% value growth taking value sales to £328.7m, compared to market leader Coca-Cola who had a 7% rise to £1.1bn.
Sugar free rise
Sugar free variants of core brands were boosted with Pepsi Max ranked third on the cola league table, with volume growth of 14%, while Coke Zero was in sixth place with a 9% volume growth.
Fruit flavoured carbonates rose 10% by value and 4% by volume, driven by increases in value and volume from Fanta, Vimto and Rubicon.
The value growth for plain water was a repeat of the previous year’s 5%, while volume increased 2%.
Although Evian was the top ranked water supplier, it saw volume decline by 3%. Highland Spring and Buxton both increased volume by 2% and 3%.
The dairy sector made a slight recovery from recent years with value and volume increases of 3% and 1% respectively.
