Coca-Cola Adds Three More Brands to Billion-Dollar Roster

ATLANTA — Three more brands joined The Coca-Cola Co.'s roster of beverages that generate annual retail sales of more than $1 billion, the company announced. This gives Coca-Cola a total of 20 billion-dollar brands in its portfolio.

The latest editions are from the fast-growing ready-to-drink tea and water categories: Gold Peak tea, available in the United States; FUZE TEA, sold in nearly 40 countries; and I LOHAS mineral water, sold in Japan.

"We are taking definitive steps to capture the enormous growth opportunities available to us in the global nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverage industry," stated Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent. "Through a strong global focus on building locally relevant and innovative brands, our company, together with a network of strong local bottling partners, has worked to successfully double the size of our billion-dollar brand portfolio in less than a decade."

Gold Peak and FUZE TEA join Japan's billion-dollar green tea brand, Ayataka, as Coca-Cola's largest brands in the global ready-to-drink tea category, the company said. All three brands have been launched since 2006 and helped push Coca-Cola's tea portfolio to substantially outpace the growth of the category globally over the past two years. They also gained market share on both a volume and value basis.

Gold Peak is a premium tea brand that debuted in 2006 and has been growing double digits since then. In 2014, Coca-Cola launched an integrated marketing campaign to support Gold Peak that included national television, print, outdoor, digital and social media advertising. As one of the fastest-growing national iced tea brands, it drove nearly 30 percent of all dollar growth in the ready-to-drink tea category last year, the company said. It is sold in multiple varieties, including Sweet Tea, Lemonade Tea, Unsweetened Tea, Diet Tea, Raspberry Flavored Tea and Green Tea.

FUZE TEA has expanded availability to nearly 40 markets around the world since its 2012 launch, reaching billion-dollar status in less than three years. Its lineup currently features more than 30 varieties, such as Black Tea with Lemon, Black Tea with Peach, Black Tea with Lemongrass and Apple, Green Tea with Mango and Chamomile, and zero-calorie Light Tea. It will launch in additional markets this year.

Coca-Cola Japan launched the water brand I LOHAS in 2009. Since then, it has become the No. 1 immediate consumption mineral water brand sold in Japan. Recently, Coca-Cola took steps to significantly grow I LOHAS by introducing a new line of single-serve 515-milliliter I LOHAS sparkling beverages in plain and lemon flavors, as well as a new larger 1,555-milliliter package in the convenience store channel.

Since 2007, Coca-Cola has added 10 brands to its billion-dollar portfolio across a broad range of beverage categories including sparkling, juice, water and tea, the company said. Additions include Coca-Cola Zero, Simply, Minute Maid Pulpy, Del Valle, Bonaqua, Ayataka and vitaminwater.