Sugar-free soft drinks – now in the lower categories too

Carbonated soft drink retail sales fell last year, in terms of value and volume alike, but the decrease did not affect the different retail channels to the same extent. – We registered a negative trend in independent small shops: they lost 3 percent in both value and volume last year, compared with 2008. Domestic chains’ performance was also a bit worse.

However, in 2009 these two channels realised 46 percent of volume and 55 percent of value sales on the carbonated soft drink market. Modern retail channels improved their share from 50 percent in 2008 to 54 in 2009 (value) and from 44 to 49 (volume) – says Éda Pogány, Coca-Cola Hungary’s communications director. Nielsen’s data indicates that coke flavour remains to be popular and the dominance of family-size packaging continued to grow. – This year the proportion of larger than 2-litre packaging increased. Private labels’ conquest continued, especially in discount stores. ‘B’ brands of international companies and cheaper Hungarian brands generally strengthened – informs Eszter Beraki, the brand manager of Maspex Olympos Kft. Éda Pogány told our magazine that Coca-Cola Hungary offers two sugar-free varieties to coke lovers: Coca-Cola Light primarily targets women, while Coca-Cola Zero focuses on young men. Last year the segment had a 30-percent volume share – up 1 percent from 2008. Éda Pogány added that in terms of value there was a slightly negative trend because sugar-free varieties became available among cheaper ‘B’ brands and private labels. – Márka managed to improve carbonated soft drink sales, but sales of cheaper PL products with sweetener fell. In this segment the so-called sugar category is still strong – says Tibor Pécskövi, MÁRKA Kft.’s managing director. Coca-Cola is one of the official sponsors of the football World Cup in South Africa, so in the first half of the summer they will do an integrated campaign that concentrates on goal scoring and supporting teams together. As for products, their novelty is Bongo, a passion fruit-orange version of Fanta. Maspex Olympos’Apenta focuses its activities on the healthy character of products – all of their soft drinks are made using natural mineral water.

From March 2010, no artificial colouring is used in the production of Apenta soft drinks. This change is also indicated by a symbol on the label. Although Márka is a well-known brand among Hungarian consumers, even they need to innovate if they want new buyers. They recently added ice tea to their portfolio and in the autumn they plan to enter the market with a premium category syrup product range, made from 100 percent natural ingredients.