Coca-Cola remains top soft drink by a large distance

Volume and value sales have decreased across the board by about 20% across the top seven brands in The Drinks List - top brands to stock in 2022​.

Coca-Cola saw a 19.5% fall in volume sales from 536,040 hectolitres (HL) to 431,747HL, while its value sales dropped from £336.9m to £275.1m – an 18.3% plummet. However, this still represented about 100,000HL and £48m more sales respectively than second placed Diet Coke and almost 185,000hl and close to £143m more than Pepsi Max in third spot.

Diet Coke saw volume losses of 15.3% (from 391,090HL to 331,213HL) and value sales drop by 11.8% (from £246.1m to £217.1m) while Pepsi Max’s volumes dropped from 335,816HL to 247,329HL (minus 26.3%) and value fell from £172.m to £132.3m (minus 23.2%).

Best of the rest

Positions four to six were taken by R Whites, Pepsi and Schweppes Lemonade, which all lost between 20.3% and 25.2% in volumes and 18.2% and 24.9% in value.

The only shuffle in order from last year’s list involved new entrant Schweppes Lime Cordial reach ninth place and Red Bull dropping a spot to 10th. Interestingly, only Coke Zero and Red Bull suffered volume and value losses in single-digit percentage points versus all other brands. Coke Zero volume sales went from 145,535HL to 135,872HL – a fall of 6.6% – and value dropped by 6.7% from £87.9m to £82m.

Faring best in respect of its own statistics from last year was Red Bull, which saw volumes drop by just 4.4% from 67,846HL to 64,864HL and value fell 3.4% from £73.1m to £70.6m.

Despite retaining seventh position, Diet Pepsi was hit by the most severe declines of 28.2% in volume sales (218,826hl down to 157,202hl) and 26.3% in value sales (£114.4m down to £84.3m).

• All data provided by CGA for the 12 months to 9 October 2021​​