FDBusiness.com

Coca-Cola Great Britain has reduced the sugar content of Coca-Cola Life™ even further so that it will contain 45 per cent less sugar and calories than regular (full sugar) colas. The new recipe replaces the first version of Coca-Cola Life which was launched in Great Britain in September 2014 and contained a third less sugar and calories than regular colas.

Coca-Cola Life will continue to be sweetened with a blend of sugar and stevia plant extract but the recipe has been changed to include a greater level of stevia plant extract. A 330ml can of Coca-Cola Life will now contain 76 calories and 19 grams of sugar.

Jon Woods, General Manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain, says: “Through extensive research and development we’ve been able to reduce the sugar and calorie content even further without compromising the great taste of Coca-Cola Life. We’ve had a really positive reaction from consumers since we launched and it has been encouraging to see how many households have gone on to buy it again after they have tasted it. We think it will continue to appeal to consumers who are looking to reduce their sugar and calorie intake but do not want to switch to a sugar-free cola. Coca-Cola Life has an important role to play as part of our overall strategy to offer choice and raise awareness of our lower and no sugar options.”

In addition to regular Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Life, the company offers two variants with no sugar – Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero.

He continues: “Investing in reformulation is just one of the actions we are taking to help people reduce their sugar and calorie intake alongside offering smaller pack sizes, putting colour-coded nutrition labels on the front of all our bottles and cans and increasing the marketing investment in our no sugar colas.”

Coca-Cola Life is now worth £35 million in sales since launch in September 20143. The new version of Coca-Cola Life will be available in stores from April onwards and, based on 2015 sales, will potentially remove more than 800 million calories from the nation’s diet.

Since 2012 Coca-Cola Great Britain has invested £15 million in reformulation to reduce sugar and calories in some of the nation’s favourite soft drinks, including Sprite, Dr Pepper and Fanta, as well as innovating to launch new drinks like Coca-Cola Life. The reformulations have contributed to reducing people’s sugar and calorie intake – for example, the Sprite and Dr Pepper reformulations each removed more than 10 billion calories and 2,500 tonnes of sugar from the nation’s diet.

This has helped make soft drinks the only food and drink category where the sugar taken home from home from them is decreasing – by 10 per cent in the last four years. In addition, purchases of low calorie soft drinks have increased by 35.7 per cent in the last three years according to Government data.

The launch of the new version of Coca-Cola Life follows the recent launch of a new global marketing strategy for Coca-Cola which will see all variants of Coca-Cola come together under one brand in a move which aims to drive awareness of the choice available within the Coca-Cola range. The strategy was previously launched in GB in March 2015. The company also announced the launch of a new global marketing campaign, Taste The Feeling, which will bring the strategy to life.