Su Wei, CEO Of Swire Coca Cola Group

"If you look closely at the regions in which Swire operates, you will find that China is the leader in business growth." Su Wei, CEO of Swire Coca Cola group, told reporters, "it is also for this reason that we have seen the prospect of the Chinese market, and have put the China headquarters in Shanghai, where we will continue to increase investment in assets, personnel and products."

Recently, Su Wei, CEO of Swire Coca Cola group, one of the two largest bottlers of Coca Cola in China, was interviewed by 21st century economic reporter. She said that thanks to the strong control of the epidemic situation by the Chinese government, the sales of Coca Cola products in China recovered rapidly after the low tide in February and March.

Swire Coca Cola is a business unit of Swire Co., Ltd. It is the fifth largest Bottling Group in the global bottling system. Its predecessor was Swire Beverage Co., Ltd. in March 2019, Swire beverage was renamed Swire Coca Cola. It is reported that the company covers 736 million consumers in 12 provinces and cities in mainland China (COFCO Coca Cola in other provinces), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Taiwan region of China and western United States.

"We are very pleased to see the promulgation of the foreign investment law. As an international investment enterprise, this means that the Chinese government is trying to provide us with a better business environment." Su Wei said, "especially for the newly established or expanded enterprises, we can get tax relief and give us a reassurance."

The sales of Coca Cola series products in China recovered rapidly after the low tide in February and March. Picture vision China

Fast business recovery

"In fact, affected by the epidemic situation, the sales volume in February and March this year showed a relatively large decline, especially in February, with a year-on-year drop of nearly 80%." "In particular, we have a bottling factory in Wuhan, which has brought us a lot of challenges," she said

She told reporters that many employees of Swire Coca Cola Co., Ltd. had experienced the SARS epidemic in 2003. After the outbreak of Xinguan epidemic, an emergency management team was quickly established to cooperate with the local government to control the epidemic situation, and the recovery speed of business was gradually accelerated.

In terms of supply chain, Su Wei said that because all product lines of Swire are basically purchased in China, there are basically no serious problems. "A little bit affected are products such as sugar free Coca Cola and juice, because some of the raw materials need to be imported from abroad. But now there will be no problem, our domestic stock is very sufficient. "

In the first half of 2020, the increase of Coca Cola's shares in the first half of 2020 is 46.9% higher than that in the first half of 2020, which is not based on the amount of tax deducted by Coca Cola in the first half of 2020.

For Swire Coca Cola, the biggest changes brought about by the epidemic are reflected in two aspects.

The first is the change of product category. "During the outbreak, we were particularly hard hit, but health drinks were hardly affected." Su Wei said, "for example, sugar free Coca Cola, whether during or after the outbreak, has maintained a rapid growth. During the period of the outbreak, the demand for Coca Cola was very high, especially for the products of 200 ml

The second is the change of sales channels. In the interview, Su Wei mentioned that the epidemic situation made Swire Coca Cola more active in using big data analysis to help decision-making and increase revenue. Specifically, the epidemic has greatly promoted the development of e-commerce and home business, with fresh e-commerce and Shangchao o2o developing most rapidly.

"Community stores, home service and fresh e-commerce channels grew very well during the epidemic period. We also accelerated closer cooperation with these o2o fresh food supermarkets." Su Wei said, "we will have a team dedicated to docking with these supermarkets to ensure that more resources can be given."

At the same time, it also promotes Swire Coca Cola to further strengthen its digital strategy. Su Wei said that through the technology of IOT (Internet of things), the company will intelligentize all over 700000 freezers in the market, and realize online through networking, making traditional freezers combined with big data become the productivity of business growth.

On the product side, in order to make the promotion direct to consumers, Swire Coca Cola added a two-dimensional code inside the bottle cap, so that consumers can easily scan the code to participate in the company's digital interaction. "Through digitization, we can also clearly know what kind of products are more popular with what kind of consumers, so as to find more sales opportunities; subsequent R & D and launch of new products can also more accurately and quickly find the market and consumers." Suwei said.

sustainable development

In May this year, Swire Coca Cola released the 2030 sustainable development strategy, which fully disclosed its commitments and objectives in seven core areas, namely, water resource management, energy efficiency management and climate change response, packaging and waste management, product selection, sustainable procurement, multi inclusive corporate culture and community care.

Among them, one of the major themes related to product change is "sugar reduction". According to the report, by 2025, reduce the average sugar content per 100ml beverage by 20%; do not publicize the product to children under 12 years old; ensure that 100% of the product packaging has clear nutrition label; and achieve 100% of the operating factory food safety certification (fssc22000).

"In the Chinese market, related topics such as' sugar reduction 'have attracted much attention. Now we are working closely with Coca Cola and are still expanding our product portfolio to include more low calorie and zero calorie beverages. In addition to the familiar diet and zero coke, we also have zero calorie sprite and Fanta. In 2018, the company launched the product "Chuncha" series to cope with the emerging trend of sugar free tea. " Su Wei introduced in detail.

According to the report on new trends in the global beverage industry in 2019 released by the China Institute of competition, the beverage industry is facing significant changes in terms of consumers, products, brands and distribution modes. "In the Chinese market, consumers are beginning to embrace new beverage brands and niche products. New beverage categories such as bottled water, sports drinks and sugar free tea are also being embraced by consumers. Therefore, we should speed up the development and expansion of new products. " Su Wei stressed.

Among all the products of Coca Cola, soda, the most representative and potential product, has become one of the focuses of future growth.

"In the past two years, the development of soft drinks in the beverage market in China is still relatively leading category, and the category growth of soft drinks is faster than that of the whole beverage." "During the epidemic, soda is also one of the categories with the slowest decline rate, which shows the potential of this category in the future," she said

Su Wei said that China's entire beverage market is a very diversified whole category market, and beverage categories from all over the world will appear in the Chinese market. At the same time, the degree of dispersion of this market is relatively high, no category is in a dominant position, and the tea category with the highest proportion accounts for only 14% - 15%, which is a relatively fragmented market.

"From the perspective of soda products, our advantage lies in the brands of Coca Cola, Sprite and Fanta. There is no doubt about our market position." "The Coca Cola brand has a very long history. We will strive to give consumers more choices under this category, and expand in sugar free, fiber + and other aspects," Suwei said

The other category is tea. "In the past two years, we can see that the development trend of tea in China is very good." We can say that the average sugar content of Suwei tea can be greatly reduced if we can get a rapid increase in sugar content

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