Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I has denied it is planning to extend soft drink Orangina into alcohol.
The supplier last week applied for updated protection for the orange flavoured drink with the Intellectual Property Office under both class 32 and class 33 marks. The marks cover beers, mineral and aerated waters and other non-alcoholic beverages, as well as alcoholic beverages.
However, there were “currently no plans for an alcoholic Orangina drink in the UK,” a spokeswoman for SBF GB&I told The Grocer.
“This was a trademark protection exercise, filing new logos and packshots for Orangina in the UK simply to make sure they are covered for any future proceedings,” the spokeswoman insisted. “Filing trademarks in product classes for non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks is standard industry practice.”
Orangina – currently listed with retailers including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Tesco and Waitrose – was created by a Spanish pharmacist in Algeria in the 1930s but exploded on the international stage after production was switched to Marseille by boss Jean-Claude Beton in 1962.
The brand was sold to Pernod Ricard in 1984 and – after changing hands several times throughout the 2000s – was acquired by Suntory in 2009.
Orangina was rebooted in the UK by SBF GB&I in 2015 in a 420ml PET bottle, alongside a £4m multichannel push.
According to data from NIQ reported by The Grocer, it was not among the top 30 biggest carbonated soft drinks in the UK in 2023. In 2022, sales amounted to £4.7m [NIQ 52 w/e 10 September 2022].
SBF GB&I this year made its first foray into alcohol in the UK, launching Japanese RTD brand –196.
The brand – owned by parent company Suntory Holdings in Japan – debuted with a duo of 6% abv vodka sodas.
It takes its name from Suntory’s “proprietary freeze crush infusion technology”.
The drinks are made by freezing fruit using liquid nitrogen at –196°C. The frozen zest, pulp and juice are then crushed into powder and infused with vodka.
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