This is the first time that the age group 125-year-old dares to offer an alcoholic beverage, after dropping in 1983, the sale of wines inherited from the redemption of Taylor Wines in 1977. Three variants of lemon and more or less alcoholic “Lemon-Do” are proposed for this new beverage that belongs to the category of “chuhai”, often based on a distilled alcohol called “shochu”, carbonated and accommodated to different fruit flavors.
In a first time, Lemon-Do not, however, will be sold only on the island of Kyushu (south-west). “This is a test, in a region which is an important market,” said Masaki Iida, a spokesman for Coca-Cola in Japan. Drinks “chuhai” are not very strong (between 3 and 9%) and is popular with young people and women.
Sales of beverages with low alcohol content tended to increase in recent years, especially the cocktails of this type.
A market cluttered
Coca-Cola, however, on a market that is already well crowded, all the major manufacturers of beverages japanese (Asahi, Suntory, Kirin, etc) already offered a very wide variety of “chuhai”.
For Coca-Cola, it is to expand its range of products to become less dependent on its sodas and sugary.
(with AFP)
