Soft drinks firms engage as election nears

Speaking at a BSDA lunch in London last month, Dave Wallwork, who is also md of Feel Good Drinks Company, indicated the industry was planning to crank up its political lobbying in an attempt to present a more positive message. More healthy drink options can also be expected in response to consumer demand, said Wallwork.

“We will continue to face challenges,”​ said Wallwork. “We will work together to build on our success on meeting consumer needs. As an industry we just need to make sure that the new government next year recognises that.”​

‘Ahead of our critics’ ​

The soft drinks industry was successful precisely because it gave consumers what they wanted, remarked Wallwork. “That will always keep us ahead of our critics,”​ he added. “Innovation, new products through reformulation, more choice, more new pack formats – it’s why we built a category worth more than £15bn.”​

While the market value of soft drinks is £15.5bn, figures from Canadean show that the sector has a value added impact on the UK economy of £7.7bn. This includes £1.4bn as a direct contribution from the investment and spending by soft drinks companies, for salaries, tax payments and profits that remain in the UK. An indirect contribution of £6.3bn comes from the involvement of upstream suppliers and downstream retailers within the wider value chain.

Last year, sales generated by soft drink manufacturers increased by over 4% to £15.5bn, Wallwork said. “That is £600M worth of sales in what remains a pretty tough economy.”​ Although sales this year began quite flat, they picked up as the summer progressed, he noted, with water, energy drinks, healthy juice drinks and low calorie drinks continuing to gain market share.

“There are challenges, obviously: more scrutiny from campaigners, politicians, the media and consumers – brilliant, bring it on.​

“We’ve already innovated to give choice. We’ve reduced calorie content so that 60% of what we sell has no added sugar in it. That’s awesome. We’ve set ourselves ambitious targets and we are well on the way to achieving them.”​

Reduced calories content ​

Over the past few years, soft drinks manufacturers have reduced the calorie and sugar content of their products they sell by 4%, claimed Wallwork. “Most of us have also adopted the government’s voluntary front-of-pack labelling scheme,”​ he added. “And we invest a lot of money in advertising low- and no-calorie products.”​ As a result, sales of low- and no-calorie drinks were up 5%, he added.

But, despite many BSDA members signing up to the government’s Public Health Responsibility Deal pledge on calorie reduction, soft drinks makers have continued to be slammed for selling products containing high levels of sugar. Health lobbyists claim that sugary soft drinks are a major contributor to rising obesity levels in children across the UK.