By the time Lucozade, Ribena and Suntory came together in 2014, the impact of the overconsumption of sugar on people’s health was becoming increasingly clear. By 2016 it had reached a real tipping point. We realised that if we wanted to have brands that were fit for the future, we needed to change and cut down on the sugar significantly.
Our challenge was to provide our health-conscious consumers with a better-suited version of our drinks all while matching the flavour they knew as closely as possible.
We were determined to have a positive impact on our consumer’s lives and deliver the very best lower-calorie drinks on the market.
Our challenge was to provide our health-conscious consumers with a better-suited version of our drinks all while matching the flavour they knew as closely as possible.
We were determined to have a positive impact on our consumer’s lives and deliver the very best lower-calorie drinks on the market.
Sugar tastes good. Everyone knows that. But there are plenty of zero-calorie flavour substitutes that can mimic the sweetness of sugar. We could have just replaced the sugar with those and problem solved, right?
Wrong
Did you know that sugar is responsible for lots more than just the sweetness of a drink? It provides volume, it affects the feel of the liquid in your mouth – getting rid of the sugar in our drinks without throwing out the taste and texture too was no easy task.
We had 60 drinks to reformulate which meant a mountain of different recipes to trial. We pulled in a hundred members of staff, who worked tirelessly to make it happen. We conducted countless consumer trials along the way to ensure that we were getting it right.
As consumer needs change alongside global health trends, we innovate to ensure our portfolio of drinks continues to offer the public relevant options. Each of our main brands has a lower-sugar alternative and we’ve developed less sweet-tasting products too.