Sandhya Pillay, General Manager, Coca-Cola Oceania

Like all New Zealanders, we are concerned about rising obesity rates in this country. We are dedicated to helping Kiwis consume less sugar from our beverages, making significant changes within our product portfolio, packaging and marketing communication. This has seen the average kilojoule content of beverages in Coca-Cola New Zealand’s portfolio reduce by 9% over the past three years. In addition, we are committed to the Ministry of Health’s Healthy Kids Pledge.

Some key actions we have undertaken include:

  • Expanding our range of low and no sugar beverages by - 
    • Reducing sugar in current products, such as Keri Fruity Drink, Fanta Grape, Powerade ION4, Sparkling Duet Raspberry and Fanta Raspberry.
    • Launching new products with no or reduced sugar, such as Coca-Cola No Sugar, limited edition Coca-Cola Raspberry, Keri 50% Less Sugar Fruit Drink and Barista Bros Mocha.
  • Increasing our range of small packs (300mL or less) in more locations, such as convenience stores, petrol stations and supermarkets.
  • Providing transparent information about our products, such as the Health Star Rating integrated energy icon on our packs, energy information panels on our vending machines, an online beverage comparison tool and serves-per-pack labelling on our multi-serve bottles.
  • Driving choice -
    • Marketing responsibly: Promoting water, focusing most of our Coca-Cola brand specific marketing on Coca-Cola No Sugar and implementing the largest sampling campaign we have ever undertaken during the launch of Coca-Cola No Sugar.
    • Equipment innovation: Rolling out Coca-Cola’s most advanced drink fountain in all Burger King restaurants in New Zealand - with half of its 58 different drink combinations low or no sugar.

As a result, today 1/3 of our sales are in either low or no sugar varieties – an increase of 13% since 2015 - with sales of low and no kilojoule sparkling drinks increasing by 6.4% in 2017 versus 2016.

Further, this year we are proud to announce our target to reduce sugar across our portfolio by 10% by 2020. 

We are committed to continuing our ambitious reformulation and new product innovation program and harnessing our marketing capabilities to encourage more people to choose our lower kilojoule and no sugar options more often and will continue to keep you updated on our progress.

For more information: https://www.coca-colajourney.co.nz/stories/our-actions-in-the-marketplace