Coca-Cola reinforces reusability ambitions with smart dispenser for personalized beverages

11 May 2022 --- Coca-Cola is unveiling a new beverage machine smart dispenser that offers greater choice and personalization in drinks. The New Compact Freestyle also reduces carbon emissions and packaging by facilitating reusability. 

“The findings of our preliminary analysis promisingly show that the New Compact Freestyle can have a lower carbon footprint per serving compared to traditional packs, such as cans and PET bottles,” says Nikos Koumettis, president of Europe at The Coca-Cola Company.

Trials of the compact smart dispenser – the smallest unit in the most digitally advanced range of freestyle machines – will begin this month. 

The first trials will take place at a range of at-work and on-the-go outlets in France and Belgium, in partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners. Trials in Great Britain will begin shortly thereafter, as additional European countries and customers are added to the trials throughout 2022.

Freestyle brand and portfolio
The New Compact Freestyle has been developed as an extension of the iconic Coca-Cola Freestyle brand and portfolio. 

The New Compact Freestyle enables direct digital consumer interaction, with options for consumers to personalize temperature and carbonization levels.It enables direct digital consumer interaction, with options for consumers to personalize temperature and carbonization levels to their taste, with around 40 beverage choices on offer, using their own reusable vessel. 

The development of the New Compact Freestyle builds upon the existing work of Coca-Cola to innovate dispensed solutions as a “drinks-on-demand” category, offering smaller on-the-go and at-work locations the opportunity to provide consumers with their favorite drinks.

The digitally-advanced capabilities of the New Compact Freestyle will also provide rich data and insights into consumer behavior to help further optimize the solution.

Life Cycle Analysis
Preliminary Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of the New Compact Freestyle has identified a lower carbon footprint per liter of chilled beverage compared with conventional pack types, for example, cans and PET bottles.

Further environmental sustainability analysis will now be conducted in real-world conditions through this and future planned trials, with additional external LCA analysis and verification to be undertaken.

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, dispensed options with reusable containers can be among the best packaging options for reducing carbon footprint. 

Coca-Cola highlights that dispensed solutions – such as the New Compact Freestyle – will be instrumental in reaching its recently-announced global goal to offer 25% reusable packaging by 2030, including refillable vessels for dispensed drinks, along with refillable or returnable glass and plastic bottles.

Win-win solutions
The company says its new drinks-on-demand innovation has the potential to contribute toward Coca-Cola in Europe reaching its ambitious target of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (vs. a 2015 baseline) and net-zero emissions by 2040. 

Coca-Cola says its new drinks-on-demand innovation has the potential to contribute toward a 30% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030.“In developing this new dispenser, we’ve used the latest technology to offer a wide variety of personalization options in line with both consumers’ digital-led lives, and their appetite for choice.”

“These new trials mean that consumers can prepare their own perfect drink, just as they like it, and can use less packaging and carbon to do so – a win-win for them, and the environment,” adds Koumettis. 

The new trial follows Coca-Cola’s previous successes in reducing its packaging footprint through dispensed and packageless solutions, for example, by using existing Freestyle machines worldwide, trialing Fanta Orange, Sprite and Mezzo Mix concentrated soda syrups in Germany and Austria, and testing self-pour, self-pay beverage dispensing technology with Innovative Tap Solutions trial in Spain in 2021.

In a similar development, PepsiCo has agreed to develop a time-bound goal to deliver a certain percentage of its packaging through reusable or refillable systems by the end of the year after being pressured by shareholder advocacy group As You Saw. 

By Natalie Schwertheim