Red Bull has ramped up its low-calorie offer, ensuring it has a sugar-free version of every SKU in time for next month’s soft drinks levy.
Making a “commitment to become more relevant with current health and category trends”, the energy brand has added sugar-free 355ml and 473ml cans for its core variant as well as a sugar-free 250ml for its Edition flavours Tropical and Orange in regular pack and PMP.
Containing three calories per 100ml, all new lines are sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame K and mark the first time the Edition drinks have had low-cal versions in the UK. They will roll out in April as Red Bull becomes liable to the soft drinks levy’s higher tariff, paying 24p per litre on its full-sugar drinks, which contain 10g of sugar per 100ml.
The expansion of the sugar-free portfolio came as Brits were buying “44% more low-kcal functional energy big cans than last year, and 28% more low-kcal functional energy flavours” said Red Bull.
The brand added its first sugar-free drink in 2001 in a 250ml can, followed in 2006 by a 355ml version. The smaller pack was now “the fifth largest low-kcal drink within total soft drinks” Red Bull claimed.
However, more than half of shoppers walked away from a soft drinks purchase if there was no low kcal offering, it added. “The NPD will encourage more 18 to 34-year-olds, who want to cut down on sugar without giving up on pick-me-ups, to drink Red Bull.”
The brand’s head of category marketing, Gavin Lissimore, said shoppers would be able to “reach for their favourite SKU and expect to see the sugar-free option sitting right beside it”.
Earlier this year, Red Bull kicked off the “biggest ever” push for its zero-calorie portfolio, with VOD, digital, outdoor and social media activity.
The brand last year saw value sales surge by £5.6% to £290.8m on volumes up 6.9% [Nielsen 52 w/e 9 September 2017].
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