McDonald’s Introduces New Fruit Drink to the UK
McDonald’s UK has launched Fruitizz, a new carbonated fruit drink that will help parents give children one of their five daily portions of fruit and vegetables. The launch of Fruitizz follows three years of extensive product development to find a new drink for the McDonald’s menu that excites children, but which also delivers nutritional benefits. The refreshing fizzy drink blends 60% fruit juice from grapes, apples and raspberries with natural sparkling water.
The new generation of soft drink contains no added sugars, artificial colours or flavours. Fruitizz derives its sweetness from the sugars naturally present in the fruit. It will be served through the central drinks tower at the McDonald’s counter in response to insight which revealed that children find drinks poured from these towers more exciting and desirable.
Findings from research gathered during a successful pilot in 62 McDonald’s restaurants inWaleslast year showed that three quarters of people who bought Fruitizz with their Happy Meal would buy it again. Fruitizz is the latest new product in a series of improvements that have been made to the McDonald’s menu over the last decade.
The restaurant group has pioneered an extensive salt and sugar reduction programme, and subsequently the average Happy Meal consumed in the UK last year contained 50% less salt, 21% less saturated fat, and 31% less sugar, compared with the average Happy Meal sold in 2000. Carrot sticks, fruit bags, mineral water and organic semi-skimmed milk have also been introduced to the Happy Meal menu.
Jill McDonald, chief executive and president of McDonald’s UK, comments: “For the past three years, we have been working hard behind the scenes to create a fizzy drink that is unlike anything else currently available in high street restaurants. We tried and tested 80 formulations in order to create the right product that delivers nutritional benefit as well as a new, exciting taste.”
The launch is being supported by an extensive advertising campaign including TV, print and digital media.
