ATLANTA – While sales of Coca-Cola products dipped 1% globally during the company’s first quarter, the decline wasn’t enough to dampen the company’s confidence in its plan to restore growth for its soft drink business, Food Business News reports.
“I believe that we have a great future, where so many hundreds of millions of people in so many large markets haven’t tasted a Coca-Cola in the last month or in the last six months or in the last year,” said Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO. “We have tremendous opportunity going forward. And I believe that innovation, packaging, equipment and great marketing will continue to grow our business going forward, both in sparkling and in stills.”
Coke said it is increasing its investment in media and brand building by $400 million this year, as well as innovating its Sprite and Fanta brands and introducing new packaging.
“We are adding a sharpened focus with our bottling partners to increase sparkling brand penetration, as well as cold drink availability,” Kent said. “We are overlaying disciplined occasion brand price pack channel strategies, supported by revenue growth management capabilities to drive sustained value growth. We are continuously innovating to meet evolving consumer needs. And also, we are engaging with partners and stakeholders to promote trust and to address category misperceptions. These strategies to accelerate sparkling growth are solid, and we expect to see improving results throughout the year.”
Coca-Cola also said it hopes to grow consumption opportunities for its customers through platforms such as the Freestyle dispenser and its partnership with Keurig Green Mountain to develop the Keurig at-home beverage maker.
“And with new innovations, like creating new paths to consumption, creating new consumption occasions like the Keurig Green Mountain innovation, like Freestyle that … every time it is actually installed in an outlet, it drives traffic, it drives incidence, it drives increased sales and it drives excitement for the consumer,” Kent said. “And at the same time, our contour packages, you will see us being focused much more on the contour. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the contour bottle, the iconic contour bottle. You will see a lot of activity around that, also. “So, we feel we have a lot of work to do. But we feel that, isn’t that a great place, where you have a lot of work to do and you believe in your future?”