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Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey on the economy, expanding the company’s line of beverages, the pricing outlook, the Super Bowl, marketing, launching bottles and cans themed to the Korean boy band BTS and the company’s ‘World Without Waste’ initiative.

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage company, is dialing back on sugar and ramping up coffee to quench consumers’  thirst for non-alcoholic beverages.

“There’s a couple of truths about the consumer in the beverage industry,” Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said to FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. “One, they are drinking more commercial beverages but two, they want more choice.”

And Coke wants to be the company that serves those many choices. Last year, Coke spent $5.1 billion for U.K. coffee chain Costas, its largest acquisition ever. The deal sparked speculation that the beverage giant was on the hunt for more similar deals, as covered by FOX Business.

“Coffee is a big industry,” said Quincey. “The biggest [barrier] to the coffee industry by far is selling coffee in someone else’s outlet. The independent stores of all sorts of shapes and different sizes around the world sell coffee.”

Coca-Cola has expanded into several key non-alcoholic areas encompassing more of a focus on sparkling products, reformulating iconic Diet Coke with flavors like Diet Coke Ginger Lime and Diet Coke Feisty Cherry and upgrading its Coke Zero brand as Coke Zero Sugar with no sugar or calories.

The soft drink maker, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, has more than 500 brands, including Sprite, Dasani, Powerade and Coca-Cola, and sells its products in over 200 countries and territories across the globe.

Coca-Cola is the largest provider of beverages to independent stores, according to Quincey.

By Julia Limitone

Source: Fox Business