Coca Cola, PepsiCo work to reduce drink calories consumed by 2025
Soda giants Coca Cola Co., PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group are getting together to urge Americans to stop drinking so many sugary drinks.
The beverage companies announced a new initiative Tuesday to reduce by 20% the number of beverage calories consumed per person in the U.S. by 2025.
The drink makers -- who announced the plan at the Clinton Global Initiative -- will focus on introducing lower-calorie products and small sizes and on marketing low-calorie offerings such as water more aggressively. They will also work on adding calorie information to areas such as vending machines and self-service fountain equipment.
Susan Neely, chief executive of the American Beverage Assn., said these efforts will “help transform the beverage landscape in America.”
“This is the single largest effort by an industry to help fight obesity and leverages our companies’ greatest strengths in marketing, innovation and distribution,” she said in a statement.
Along with reducing Americans’ waistlines, drink companies are also facing pressure to find alternative products as soda sales continue to fall amid growing awareness of health and obesity issues among Americans.
Total U.S. sales of soda fell 3% to 8.9 billion cases in 2013 compared with the year before, according to the Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter. It was the ninth straight year that sales fell.
In California, legislators have wrangled over a state bill that would require health warning labels on sodas and other sugary drinks. It was sidelined last month so the costs of enforcement could be further examined.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has been critical of the beverage industry, applauded the latest initiative but said that more need to be done, such as dropping opposition to taxes and warning labels on sugary drinks.
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