COCA-COLA OFFERS NEW SINGLE-SERVE CHILLED BEVERAGE LINE IN SIX FLAVORS

HOUSTON -- Coca-Cola Foods, based here, has introduced a new line of single-serve chilled products.

c bottles. The flavors are orange juice, berry punch, tropical punch, lemonade -- under Coca-Cola's Minute Maid label -- and citrus drink Five Alive and Hi-C fruit punch.

According to vice president of dairy business systems Gary Poos, product recognition -- and, hopefully, sales -- will be boosted by the fact that the juices will be carried in convenience stores, delis and other outlets as well as supermarket dairy aisles. Poos said this is made possible by a new Dairy Business System.

"Coke Foods historically has been a very strong supermarket marketer, with very traditional warehouse delivery systems," Poos said.

He added that to maintain a high profile, the new juices have to be everywhere that Coca-Cola is.

"But this is a refrigerated, perishable product, so it has its own set of problems," he said. Therefore, the object is more along the lines of putting the product where milk is found.

Although the chilled singles began to be available to retailers nationwide in May, a new multipack is scheduled to make its dairy aisle debut today.

"Our supermarket sales team linked up the introduction of the single-serve product with 8-ounce multipack bottles of Minute Maid product, in six- and eight-packs," Poos said.

To support the product introduction, Coca-Cola has scheduled FSI drops and "traditional merchandising events through retailers, core brands and core products," Poos said.

He declined to give further details about promotions or retailer involvement.

To distribute the chilled singles, the company is using fully integrated dairy production facilities, Poos said. "The product goes right onto their trucks. We guarantee a 28-day shelf life to retailers, so the product needs to be held at cool temperatures throughout the production and distribution system."

Although the product will be primarily merchandised in the chilled juice section of the dairy, the company also plans to place it in secondary areas throughout the store. "We do have some retailers who have authorized placement in the deli," Poos said. "We're going to have it by the salad bars, and we may do things with ice merchandisers."

Poos said the product and its packaging communicate some crucial messages to the consumer.

"It's a consumer-engineered, consumer-driven package. It's shakeable, plastic and mobile: you can take it anywhere that glass is prohibited, and it fits in the car cup holder, so we're sending that convenience message.

"It communicates 'freshness' cues to the consumer, being a high quality perishable product with a freshness date," Poos said. To emphasize this point, each bottle's label contains the message "freshness dated" in block capitals.

The fact that Coke has joined the single-serve revolution doesn't mean it is necessarily the wave of the future, Poos said.

"There are a lot of people who think single serve is the way to go, but we happen to have built our business on multiserve," he said.

However, he predicted that the chilled singles will provide a jump start to the category. "We grew the single serve 34% in nonsupermarket environment. We expect some significant category growth because of this new line," he said.