On-premise market

Cola

Maintaining its leading share

Cola remains the most important sub-category within on-premise, accounting for 42% of on-premise soft drinks sales: if cola does well, so do soft drinks. In 2007 it grew slightly ahead of the market, with sales up 4% to £1bn. Pepsi led this growth, adding £27m to sales thanks to 19% growth from Diet Pepsi. Pepsi Max also grew 2% while regular Pepsi sales were flat. The no-added-sugar trend was similarly apparent for Coca-Cola, whose modest 2% sales growth was driven by Diet Coke. These continuing gains for diet variants contrast with the take-home market, where the no-added-sugar trend has reversed slightly.

Lemonade

Schweppes chases R Whites

Lemonade, the No2 soft drink sub-category in on-premise, performed in line with total soft drinks to take a 19% share of the market – sales rose 1% to £451m. R Whites remains the brand leader: flat sales of £189m maintained its 42% share of the lemonade market. But challenger Schweppes Lemonade narrowed the gap with 6% growth to £178m.

Juice drinks

Still drives growth

Juice drinks continued to make headway alongside cola and lemonade, demonstrating their growing importance in the soft drinks mix on-premise. After growing 2% to £246m in 2007, juice drinks now account for 10% of soft drink sales. Still juice drinks increased sales value by 4%, while carbonates lost 9%. J2O increased its high share of this sub-category, driving sales up 5% to £183m and a 75% market share.

Squash

Top brands make the running

Both market leaders increased their share slightly, helping to drive squash sales up 1% to £171m. The biggest push came from No2 brand Schweppes, which grew sales 4% to £34m to take a 20% market share. No1 brand Britvic held its position with a 37% share after growing sales 1% to £63m.

Mixers

Schweppes gains in flat market

Mixer sales stayed flat at £164m. Britvic mixers slipped 4% to £73m while Schweppes grew sales 5% to end the year at £74m.

Fruit juice

Growth trend stabilises

After 3% growth in 2006, sales of (pure) fruit juice slipped slightly in 2007 to £140m. Britvic juices held onto their No 1 position, with sales of £49m, followed by Schweppes with £44m.

Energy

Red Bull holds firm as consumers flag

Energy drinks continued to lose ground last year: a 4% decline reduced total on-premise sales to £118m. Only market leader Red Bull stood its ground, growing sales by 1% to take an increased market share of 89%. While Red Bull demonstrated the value of a strong brand, lower-priced variants such as Red Rooster suffered a decline in sales.

Bottled water

Still shooting upwards

After double-digit growth in the previous year, bottled water continued to perform strongly within on-premise. While the poor summer knocked take-home sales, consumers were still choosing water when they went out – driving sales up a further 2% to £76m. This may give a clue to the underlying trend: excluding weather factors, water still looks like an important and growing sub-category. A strong performance from Robinsons Fruit Shoot H2O helped, with sales up 36% to £5.7m. The market-leading waters had a much more challenging year: Strathmore held on to top place despite a 9% fall to £17m, and No2 brand Abbey Well lost 4% to £14m.

Flavoured carbonates

Growth reversed

After growing by 4% in 2006, on-premise sales of flavoured carbonates fell 13% to £53m. Irn Bru hung on to market leadership with a relatively modest 4% decline in sales to £16m.

Industry expert

“In the on-premise channel, soft drinks is our largest category by volume outside our own beer brands. So it’s strategically important to us. It’s also a category in which we’re looking to add focus and value for both licensees and consumers in 2008 through our exciting “We deliver more” programme. We aim to offer consumers an enhanced experience on every occasion. How? Credible, targeted innovation with a long-term plan to create more occasions when a soft drink is the preferred choice. And more promotion in outlets to prompt that often elusive repeat purchase.”

On-premise sales value grew 1.3% to £2.4bn

Bottled water grew 2% to reach £76m in sale

Juice drinks grew 2% in value to take 10% of all soft drink sales