Opinion
A year in numbers … 2008
Bill Bruce, Zenith International Publishing’s group editorial director, takes a numerical approach to his summing up of 2008.
- 17 different carbon measurement initiatives launched in eight European countries. You wait for years for one carbon measurement initiative to come along and then 17 come all at once!
- $13.3bn – the New York State budget gap which led Governor David Paterson to call for a 15% ‘obesity tax’ on non-diet soft drinks. “It looks like a money grab. Paterson is trying to grab money anywhere he can find it. This is a time when the government, just like families, needs to tighten its belt.” – American Beverages Association.
- 6.6% – the amount of PET used in PET Engineering’s latest lightweight 50cl bottle, Bottle Fly. How low can you go? How high can you Fly?
- 29.3% – Britvic’s revenue growth in 2008 as announced in November. Squash makes headway while others suffer the squeeze.
- $52bn – What InBev paid for Anheuser-Busch. No small beer.
- 1,400 – the number of jobs cut by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2008. Sorrow drowning time.
- 201 entries in the 2008 Water Innovation Awards, presented in Wiesbaden as part of the Global Bottled Water Congress.
- 7% – New Zealand juice maker Charlie’s sales increase in its first four months of the current financial year. Up, and down under.
- 488 – the number of new products featured in the innovation pages of Beverage Innovation magazine in 2008. Go on, recommend a colleague to subscribe. How can you live without it?
- €600m – what Japan’s Suntory paid for Danone’s antipodean Frucor.
- $3.16bn – the combined sales of ready-to-drink coffee in Japan, North America and West Europe in 2006 according to Zenith International. Coffee to go go go.
- 23 – categories in the 2009 Beverage Innovation Awards @ drinktec. Go on, enter today. You know you want to!
- 438 – number of Kum & Go stores listing Celsius – the original calorie-burning drink – since December. Come and go for the burn.
- €23bn – the sales of fruit juice and nectars in 2007, up 1.6% according to Zenith International. Sweet.
- 85% – the estimated amount of Pepsi Bottling Group’s waste stream which is recycled. What goes around, comes around.
- 1,000 – the number of Costa Coffee outlets when the company opened its store in Moscow’s Pushkin Square in March 2008. Ruskiccino.
- 5.9% – the advance in global soft drinks consumption in 2007 according to Zenith International. On your marks …
- 800 – the number of trucks the UK’s biggest food and drink companies were planning to take off the country’s roads by the end of 2008. Less is more.
- 1% – the amount soft drinks consumption dipped in 2007, despite the wettest summers since records began in the UK. It never rains (or rather, it does).
- 58% – the reduction in beverage calories shipped to schools since 2004, according to the American Beverages Association. How low can you go?
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