June 2011 Prepared Foods -- The nature of competition in the global market varies for soft drinks and hot drinks. This difference in competition drives a very different pace of innovation for the two categories.
Over the past five years, from 2005-2010, on a global basis, the nominal value of both soft drinks and hot drinks in retail grew at about the same rate--a compound annual growth rate of 7% for soft drinks and 8% for hot drinks. However, since soft drinks generate more value than hot drinks, over this same timeframe, soft drinks’ value grew by $130 billion, while hot drinks grew by about one quarter this amount.