On Wednesday, The Coca-Cola Co will release its results for the second quarter – and first half – of 2016. Here, just-drinks takes a closer look at the company’s performance in the three months to the end of June.
- The group started the quarter by completing its US$400m purchase of Chinese protein drinks maker Xiamen Culiangwang Beverage Technology. The transaction was initially announced a year earlier, and sees Coca-Cola take ownership of a range of green bean, red bean and walnut variants of plant-based protein drinks.
- The company got into hot water in Kenya in April, after one of its ads, which featured a couple kissing, was deemed by the country’s Film Classification Board to “violate family values”.
- Meanwhile, in the UK, the group readied a reformulated version of Coke Zero in an attempt to make it “taste more like Coke”. Coke Zero Sugar, as the variant has been renamed in the country, rolled out across the country at the end of last month.
- Monster Beverage Corp, in which Coca-Cola owns a near-17% stake, reported a healthy set of Q1 figures in May, with exports leaping by just under a third.
- Also in May, an analyst warned that the group is worst-placed among the soft drinks players to deal with rising concerns among consumers and regulators about full-sugared beverages. Coca-Cola topped a chart of ‘grams of sugar per US Dollar of total EBIT’ pulled together by CLSA.
- Towards the end of the month, a number of personnel changes came as the company set up a new Europe, Middle East & Africa grouping within its operating units. The moves have been designed to “better support our evolving bottler footprint”, said CEO Muhtar Kent.
- The trend towards patriotic packaging in the US was not wasted on Coca-Cola in late-May, when the company said it would mark the Memorial Day holiday in the country with limited-edition Coke cans featuring the lyric “I’m proud to be an American”.
Is the drinks industry just following the pack to the patriotism party? – Click here for a just-drinks comment
- Then, in June, Coca-Cola teamed up with Coca-Cola FEMSA in Latin America to buy Unilever’s AdeS soy-based beverage business for US$575m. Last year, AdeS sold 56.2m unit cases and generated net sales worth US$284m.
Why has Coca-Cola Co, Coca-Cola FEMSA entered the soy segment? – Click here for a just-drinks comment
- June also saw Coca-Cola’s Keurig Kold at-home carbonation play suffer an ignominious fate when it was pulled from the market in the US, less than a year after launch. The $370 Kold was launched in September but never recovered from a spate of negative reviews.
Can The Coca-Cola Co draw Kold comfort from Keurig debacle? – Click here for a just-drinks comment
- Finally, Coca-Cola completed its second-quarter acquisitions at the end of June when its Venturing & Emerging Brands division took a minority stake in Aloe’s Aloe Gloe. The organic aloe water brand comprises four variants: Crisp Aloe, Coconut, Lemonade and White Grape.
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