Suntory Beverage and Food Europe (SBFE), producers of iconic soft drink brands Orangina, Lucozade, Schweppes and Oasis has published its third annual submission to the EU Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practices. The company is pleased to demonstrate positive progress on the Code’s aspirational objectives and calls on policy makers to create the enabling legislative framework to support the company’s sustainability transition in support of the EUs Green Deal ambitions.

Supporting the aspirational objective of ‘An optimised circular and resource-efficient food chain in Europe’, SBFE continues to remove virgin plastic made from fossil fuels from its drink containers. By the end of 2023 its portfolio contained an average of 44% recycled PET (rPET). In line with the EU’s single use plastic directive the companies’ soft drinks PET bottle containers have also been redesigned to have tethered caps.

The transition to using only sustainable materials is key to achieve circularity and closed loop recycling. SBFE’s Director of External Affairs and Sustainability Michelle Norman comments:

SBFE supports the aims of the circular economy, and we strongly believe that under the new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) we will see improvements and investments in recycling and processing infrastructure to enable our industry to improve the circularity of the packaging category. We look forward to working with the European Commission on the drafting of upcoming delegated and implementing acts to implement the PPWR provisions, particularly to truly enable higher quality recyclability, which is the precondition for effective closed loop systems and instrumental for meeting our 2030 target.

In 2023, SBFE reduced added sugar across its portfolio by 26%, against a 2015 baseline. This is a key component of the company’s strategy to bring more choice of lower calorie drinks to consumers, and to reduce added sugars in soft drinks by 35%. This commitment meets the Code of Conduct’s aspirational objective of ‘Healthy, balanced and sustainable diets for all European consumers.’

In addition to our 26% added sugar reduction, sales of our low and no sugar drinks (less than 5 grams added sugar per 100ml) continue to grow, as well as expanding the range of lower sugar drinks available in our portfolio. However, regulatory enablers and greater consumer acceptance of sweetener alternatives are still lacking and should be addressed as part of a coherent nutrition policy by policy makers.

Michelle Norman

To read more about the company’s sustainability work download the 2023 Sustainability Report here.