Coke’s New Product: Milk
Soda is not having a good year. As Americans pay more and more attention to their waistlines and the sugar that contributes to the expansion of said waistlines, carbonated beverage sales are dropping. The sale of diet soda has been in decline over the last three years, while regular soda has been taking a hit for nine years. Coca-Cola’s solution to this problem? Milk.
Coke isn’t just selling any old milk, however. Its new product, called Fairlife, has 50 percent more protein and calcium than regular milk, not to mention zero lactose. A serving of Fairlife 2 percent milk, for example, contains 13 grams of protein and 40 percent of the recommended daily value of calcium. It also costs a lot more than regular milk.
“We’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we’re used to buying in a jug,” said Sandy Douglas, Coca-Cola’s Senior VP, at a recent Morgan Stanley conference, also mentioning the “premiumisation” of milk that Coke aims to create with its new dairy product.
Apparently hoping to capitalize on Americans’ growing desire for natural, protein-packed products, Coke is promoting Fairlife’s nutrition and its lack of “added protein powders or synthetic junk.” On its website, Fairlife is described in almost sensual terms; it “flows through soft filters so we can concentrate the good stuff… and filter out the fat and sugars,” says the site, which also touts Fairlife’s sustainability and traceability, perhaps angling for a share of that sweet, sweet millennial market.
According to the Huffington Post, Fairlife milk will be sold nationwide starting in 2015.
