Q&A with Dan Sayre, Business Unit President,
One of the secrets of The
Q: How much change is
A: Put it this way. I joined
Q: Can you give an example of how consumers have changed?
A: I remember 20 or 30 years ago, people weren’t very interested in the ingredients or formulation of our products – they didn’t look ‘inside the bottle’. People tended to be more interested in how the drink made them feel – was it refreshing, did it make them happy? These emotional and social aspects are still important, but now people are more critical about what they eat and drink. Consumers want less sugar and more products they regard as healthy, natural or with specific functional benefits. We are responding by giving them the choices and the products they desire, and also being much more open and transparent in talking about our products and ingredients, balancing emotional values with easy-to-understand facts.
Q: What has
A: The best example is how we have responded to consumers’ preferences about sugar. In the last 10 years, we have removed 96,000 tonnes of sugar from our portfolio in Western Europe – that’s 384 billion calories. Put it another way, we have cut the average calories per litre by 12 percent since 2007. We’re doing this by adapting the recipe of many of our products, like lowering calories of Fanta and Sprite, or introducing new zero-sugar variants, like our all-new
Q: What about meeting consumers’ needs with new products?
A: It’s not all about taking sugar and calories out of our existing brands – we are also introducing a record number of new products and dramatically expanding our portfolio. In Western Europe, we launched 48 new drinks in 2016, like our new organic tea, Honest Tea, in Great Britain, and our adult sparkling brand FÏNLEY, in France, Belgium and Netherlands and our new range of local waters, ViO, in Germany. We are a drinks company with a broad offering, but there are still many categories for us to invest in – we’d like to learn from and leverage our global successes to do more in ready-to-drink tea and dairy-based drinks for example. You’ll see even more activity from us this year, with more than 150 new products due to hit the market in Western Europe.
Q: You talk about ‘inside the bottle’ – what are you doing outside?
A: New and different drinks are just one side of Our Way Forward. The other side of the coin is all about providing smaller and more convenient packaging, so people can control their calories more easily. You can see this with our new 150ml cans for
Q: Is product labelling an important part of this approach?
A: Consumers now expect easy-to-find and understandable product information to guide their choices. To help with this, we recently joined a coalition of six leading European food and drink manufacturers – including Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever – to back a single labelling scheme for use across the European Union, based on the easy to understand colour-coded system currently used in Great Britain & Ireland. It helps consumers make healthier choices, without the guesswork. It’s the right thing to do – if consumers say this scheme helps them manage their calories better, then fine. Whatever helps people understand what’s in our products, and make choices in a more confident way, is good for us.
Q: Are you being forced to take these actions in reaction to soda tax legislation?
A: No – we’ve always wanted to give people the drinks they know and love. But now, as times change, their desires change and we are changing with them. More people want to consume less sugar, seek out healthier choices, enjoy smaller portions and have clearer information about what they are putting in their bodies. We are embracing that change and recognising that it’s the future. There are very legitimate public health concerns about obesity, especially in our markets here in Western Europe, and as the industry leader, we have a responsibility to take real action and be part of the solution. That’s why we are doing so much around adapting our recipes and smaller portions, as we know these can tackle the problem efficiently, while also giving consumers the things we know they want.
Q: How would you summarise the future for The
A: There has been a lot of talk about our future as a ‘total beverage company’. That may not mean a lot to people outside of our company, but it’s a big change in how we see ourselves. As we react to changing consumer preferences and social changes, we need to ensure we are always focused on selling what consumers want to buy. We need to stay ahead of trends and our consumers’ evolving tastes, and that means having a truly diverse range of brands that are focused on their needs. I’ll give you an example: I used to lead our business in Japan and over there
More on Journey
-
May 2019 Drinks Digest: 5 awesome facts you didn’t know about
Coca-Cola drinks -
March 2019 Drinks Digest: 5 awesome facts you didn’t know about
Coca-Cola drinks -
Innovating
Coca-Cola : Meet the new flavours and drinks shaking up our most iconic brand - “Adding that X-factor”: Jesse Lingard and Jermaine Jenas at the ‘Where Everyone Plays’ launch event
-
Feel like a champion: The
Coca-Cola Premier League Trophy Tour
COCA-COLA ON SOCIAL