Coca-Cola plans launches in new soft drinks categories

“From a category and brand perspective, there are still a lot of categories where we are not necessarily playing or are not very big,”​ said den Hollander.

“Clearly, we are very big in colas, but there are so many other soft drinks categories. There is a lot of development in the categories that we are involved in, but there is a lot of development we could be doing, filling what we call our ‘white spaces’.”​

Den Hollander also outlined new potential market opportunities for the company, for example, within different retail outlets and channels where it doesn’t currently have a high exposure, as well as tapping into emerging digital vending technologies.

Emerging digital vending technologies​

Much of Coca-Cola’s development activity over recent years has revolved around reformulation to reduce levels of added sugar in its traditional range of products in response to market, regulatory and health lobby demands.

Looking forward, the company’s focus would continue to be on offering consumers choice by “extending our leading brands”,​ said den Hollander.

He cited new products such as the Coca-Cola’s Zero Sugar product and its Glacéau Smartwater, which is a spring water that is vapour-distilled before electrolytes are added.