Can Coca-Cola Zero conquer a country hooked on sugar?

Coca-Cola Zero - ‘Coca-Cola Sin Azucar’ - has been growing steadily in Mexico; as well as across Latin America, where in FY2024 the brand saw double-digit growth.

And with the beverage coming off a low base, Coca-Cola Femsa sees big opportunity to accelerate expansion in 2025 and beyond.

Sugary problems

Mexico is one of the highest consumers of sugary beverages globally. A sugar tax, introduced in 2014, has helped take Mexico off the top spot as far as per capita consumption goes, but it remains a high consumer.

Obesity is the leading public health concern in Mexico and has been on the rise for at least three decades. Over this time, the Mexican diet has shifted from mainly fresh and unprocessed foods to ultra-processed products high in sugar, salt and fat.

And sugary drinks make up 70% of the total added sugar in the diet.

Coca-Cola Zero (also known as Coca-Cola No Sugar in some markets) is one of Coca-Cola’s zero-calorie variants, a carbonated beverage ‘with high quality, great taste, zero calories, no sugar and low in sodium’.

Coca-Cola Zero is designed to have a taste as closely-aligned as possible to traditional sugar-sweetened Coca-Cola (in contrast to Diet Coke, which is designed to have a ‘lighter taste’). So that sets it up as a strong contender to traditional Coca-Cola.

While Coca-Cola Zero has been highly successful in markets such as the US and UK, the consumer base is very different in Mexico. That means Coca-Cola Femsa has traditionally struggled to translate Coca-Cola Zero’s success over to Mexico.

But that’s now starting to change, with the bottler highlighting growth for the brand in the country.

A key change Coca-Cola Femsa has made is to scrap complicated pricing architecture for Coca-Cola Zero and make the pricing message simpler for consumers.

Then there’s ‘what the Coke Company does like no other – the campaigns, the influencers’, says Ian Craig, CEO.

And that’s building the necessary momentum needed for strong growth. Headquartered in Mexico City, Coca-Cola Femsa has already seen a similar trajectory in Brazil and Argentina: countries that started with a small following for sugar-free versions but has seen that grow considerably.

In FY2024, Coca-Cola Femsa saw double-digit growth for Coca-Cola Zero over its regions of Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela.

That follows on from 15% growth in 2023, showing a strong trajectory for the brand. And Coca-Cola Zero Sugar volumes have surged almost 60% from a 2019 baseline.

“We’ve seen what happens in countries like Brazil, once you get the ball rolling… and it’s looking pretty good,” said Craig.

In 2025, the brand will use a ‘phenomenal’ asset – yet to be revealed – and focus on a strong soccer platform.

“Overall, I have no doubt that Coke Zero is going to be a very pleasant result for this year in Mexico,” said Craig.

Another asset driving Coca-Cola Zero forward is Juntos+, Coca-Cola Femsa’s B2B omnichannel platform, with its advanced AI capabilities. Juntos+ now reaches 1.3 million active users across Latin America, with more than 1.1 million users engaged in our Juntos+ Premia loyalty plan.

“Backed by advanced AI models, this tool enhances our salesforce capabilities, improving key coverages and salesforce effectiveness at the point of sale,” said Craig. “During the [latest] quarter, we moved from pilot phase to a large scale rollout. Now, more than 40% of our salesforce in Brazil is using Juntos+ Advisor. Its initial results are already exceeding expectations, improving location accuracy and providing our salesforce with real-time information during visits. Moreover, our AI-driven guided missions have resulted in increased SKUs per store and digital revenue per month.”