UK juice maker The Berry Company will launch two new sparkling drinks made with the superfruits goji and açaí.
Launching next month, the two new beverages are packed in slim 250ml cans with no more than 56kcal per can and over 30% not-from-concentrate juice. The açaí drink also contains guarana and yerba maté, while the goji version includes ginseng and green tea.
The Berry Company founder and CEO Khaled El-Yafi said the company intends to expand its offering to cover many of the flavours already included in its juice portfolio.
El-Yafi said: “The açaí sparkling drink contains added botanicals guarana and yerba maté, thereby delivering a fully authentic Brazilian experience. The goji berry drink includes added ginseng and green tea extract, which deliver a fully authentic Far Eastern experience.
“These offerings are delicious and light and totally unique. The berry company has helped build the açaí and goji berry consumer base in Europe and around the rest of the world. We feel the addition of sparkling drinks are a perfect complement to the rest of our brand. We in turn hope to develop the rest of our core range into a sparkling offering. This would eventually include pomegranate, cranberry, superberries, and blueberry lightly carbonated drinks. This range of products can be consumed on their own, at any time of day, after or during an exercise routine or even as a mixer option. We are extremely excited by this.”
The two drinks are free from added sugars, putting them out of reach of the UK government’s looming sugar tax, which is set to be implemented in April this year.
Drinks containing more than 5g of sugar per 100ml will be taxed at a rate of £0.18 per litre unit charge, while drinks with more than 8g of sugar per 100ml will be subject to a higher levy of £0.24 per litre unit charge.
The government has said that money raised by the sugar tax will be used to fund sports in British schools, but has had to consistently downgrade its expectations of how much the tax will raise as companies prepare for the tax by removing sugar and making pack sizes smaller.
The Berry Company previously launched a range of ‘Naturally Light’ juices that also fall below the threshold of the sugar tax, and feature just 20kcal per 100ml, as well as a 100 range featuring 100% super fruit juice.
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