Soft drinks surging forward
Soft drinks have just had their most successful year since 2003, according to the latest Britvic Soft Drinks Report.
The category saw a rise of seven per cent overall, and a five per cent rise in the on-trade - a faster growth rate than total alcoholic drinks.
"The past five years have been an immensely significant time for the soft drinks category and 2006 was no exception," said Andrew Richards, sales director, Britvic.
"The escalating trend towards health and well-being and the introduction of new legislation continued to shape the category.
"However, despite these rapidly changing conditions, the industry grew a remarkable seven per cent. This exceptional performance is testament to the manufacturers' innovation and understanding of changing consumer needs."
The report also revealed the level of opportunity that still exists in the UK with bottled water.
"Despite recent growth, the bottled water category still only accounted for around 20 per cent of total soft drinks volume in the UK in 2006," added Mr Richards.
"This is in contrast to all other European countries where volume is over 50 per cent, which really demonstrates the scale of opportunity for growth of the category domestically."
The scale of this opportunity for pubs was further highlighted by the report showing that 2006 saw the value of bottled water in the on-trade growing by as much as 28 per cent.
Soft drinks manufacturers threw their weight behind the better-for-you trend during the last 12 months with innovation and marketing spend focused around this area.
Overall, soft drinks manufacturers invested £150m in marketing their brands in 2006, with Coca-Cola Enterprises, Britvic, PepsiCo and Unilever contributing the most spend, amounting to £61m between them.
