COCA-COLA – GUILTY OR INNOCENT?

Innocent is simply the best new brand and business I’ve come across in the past decade. The products, the people, the ethos and the performance have all been extraordinary. I’ve known the founders from quite early on and have admired how they adapted to rapid growth, while staying true to their core values.

Even this past year, faced with a massive onslaught from Tropicana smoothies and a UK market downturn, Innocent has remained a strong leader and has recovered market share.

It is well advanced in its development strategy of diversifying into new products and expanding into new territories. So many other companies have faltered at this stage. Trying to do it themselves without adequate resources or expertise. Picking the wrong partners with divergent perspectives.

Very few potential alliances offer a genuine international reach. In Europe even Coca-Cola lacks chilled distribution, smoothie production facilities and short shelf life experience. But that’s not the point.

So long as Coke provides the right support, then Innocent can benefit from the funding and market access that it needs.

In some ways, I wish Innocent had stayed independent, but we must allow Innocent to spread its message rather than be overtaken by imitators. So on today’s evidence, I find Innocent not guilty and Coke innocent.

PET LIGHTWEIGHTING – UPDATE

In response to my blog of 27th March, I was asked where the lightweighting benchmarks are being achieved. With thanks again to Sipa, I have added an extra column showing the countries leading the way.

	Country	Size in litres	Grams of PET	Grams per litre
For bottled water	USA	0.3	7.9	26.3
	USA, Italy	0.5	9.9	19.8
	USA	0.6	12.0	20.0
	Italy	1.5	25.5	17.0
	Italy	2.0	33.0	16.5
	Mexico	10.0	115.0	11.5
For carbonated soft drinks,	Mexico	0.4	17.0	42.5
based on Coca-Cola	Mexico	0.6	20.5	34.2
	Mexico	1.0	33.5	33.5
	Mexico	1.5	42.5	28.3
	Mexico	2.0	46.5	23.2
	Mexico	2.5	52.5	21.0
	Mexico	3.0	54.5	18.2
For hot fill still drinks	Indonesia	0.35	20.0	57.1
	China	0.5	22.0	44.0

If you would like to know more, I recommend you go to Nicola.Morellato@zoppas.com

LOSE WEIGHT BY DRINKING MORE WATER

True or false ?  Well, Nestlé’s latest annual report suggests it could be true.

It commissioned two US academic studies which showed:

• “people with higher water consumption had healthier diets.”
• “diets with relatively high drinking water consumption, as opposed to caloric beverages, were positively associated with weight loss.”
• “drinking more water may be an efficient alternative to lowering the intake of caloric beverages and may help to avoid calorie over-consumption, the main cause of obesity.”
• “As part of a balanced diet, water has been shown to be the best beverage choice for consumers seeking healthy hydration.”

It backed up its assessment with two significant statistics:

• Carbonated soft drinks accounted for 6.5% of total calories consumed by Americans in 2002.
• Between 1965 and 2002, the average energy intake of US consumers from all beverages rose by 222 calories per day, with 108 calories coming from carbonated soft drinks.

It’s hard not to draw conclusions from this, but it ain’t over until the fat lady slims.

WATER SENSE

It’s extraordinary how much water is used to make products that seem to have so little water in them.  I wrote about this last September.  We’re in the territory of embedded water or virtual water.  It includes all water use from irrigating the raw materials to managing the waste.

Here is a revealing set of comparisons from the University of Twente/Unesco:

Embedded /virtual water	Litres
Sheet of paper	10
Cup of tea	30
Apple	70
Cup of coffee	140
Bottle of beer	150
Loaf of bread	440
Fillet of chicken	680
1kg bag of sugar	1,500
500g of cheese	2,500
1kg of rice	3,400
Beef steak	3,875
Pair of jeans	10.850

In a water constrained world, this certainly helps put the consequences of our consumer choices into a clearer perspective.  It should also help us make more sensible use of our most precious natural resource.

COCA-COLA’S CARBON FOOTPRINT

Some people are so prejudiced. Especially when it comes to big corporations. In G20 week, the motives of world business are under greater scrutiny than ever.

The more I look, however … and I look a lot, the more I find that most market leaders have been working diligently behind the scenes for years to take the right actions. The people who work there are no different to you and me.

So, I was reassured when Coca-Cola recently published the carbon footprints of its main brands in Britain.

First, it undertook a complete life cycle analysis, including:

• ingredients
• packaging
• manufacturing
• distribution
• storage and refrigeration
• consumer use and disposal.

Second, it provided actual figures per pack:

CO2e emissions	Pack in litres	Grams per pack	Grams per litre
Coca-Cola	Glass 0.33	360	1091
Coca-Cola	Can 0.33	170	515
Diet Coke/Coke Zero	Can 0.33	150	454
Coca-Cola	PET 0.5	240	480
Coca-Cola	PET 2.0	500	250
Diet Coke/Coke Zero	PET 2.0	400	200
Oasis	Glass 0.375	340	907
Oasis	PET 0.5	240	480

Notably, packaging accounted for between 30% and 70% of the total. Recycling a 33cl Coca-Cola can would reduce its footprint by 41% to 100 grams.

Third, it showed how far it has already moved to reduce emissions:

• 50% recycled content in aluminium cans
• 40% recycled glass in glass bottles
• 25% recycled PET in PET across Europe in 2010.

Fourth, it gave access to much more detail, which is to be found at cokecorporateresponsibility.co.uk

This seems an intelligent example for others to follow. If you would like assistance for your own company’s calculation and improvement, Zenith has a dedicated Sustainability Consulting team that would be delighted to help.