Coca-Cola Buys Ades brand to enhance portfolio '' healthy ''

Coca-Cola has stepped up yesterday its expansion strategy out of the soft drink industry-category that, despite representing the flagship company, builds up low sales in the last decade. In partnership with the Mexican bottler Femsa, the CocaCola company acquired the line of soy beverages Ades, who belonged to Unilever, for $ 575 million. With the purchase, Coca Cola may enlarge the offer of carbonaceous products (without gas), which already owned eight brands in Brazil, two of them of juices ready – the Most Juice, acquired in 2005, and Del Valle, bought in 2006. For Unilever, the sale is another step in the simplification of project portfolio, a goal that the anglo-Dutch multinational comes putting into practice for some time. The deal now awaits the approval of regulatory authorities, but has already received the approval of the boards of Directors of both companies. Latin America. Established in 1988 in Argentina, the Ades brand leads the market for soy-based beverages in Latin America, with revenue of $ 284 million (about R$ 1.015 billion) and sales of 56, 2million pounds in 2015. According to market estimates, half of that amount would come from the brazilian operation, where the Ades is present since 1996. "It''s an interesting transaction for Coca-Cola. The company works for ten years with a global strategy to have products in all segments of non-alcoholic beverages, and the soy beverage market, healthy appeal, is important, "says Adalberto Viviani, consultant at beverage and retail area. The expert points out that in recent years, the American company comes to more natural segments with the purpose to gain younger consumers. Em2014, a poll published in the United States by Coca-Cola found that the average age of the typical consumer of the refrigerant in the country is 56 years. Customers with até40 years prefer energetic and the generation in the 20-year-old told opt for natural drinks such as water and natural juices, made in time, the fruit itself. Here, the trend doesn''t seem to be very different. A survey of the research firm Kantar World Panel held in 2015 showed 5% drop in sales of soft drinks, while the coconut water sales advanced 11 percent. "The soda has a future, but will have to get rum soda healthy. I see room for products such as aerated juices, as are the Italian lemonades. That''s why Coca-Cola is changing, "said Silvio experts Laban, which is academic Coordinator of MBA courses from Insper.