More Than Taste: Reformulating for a Healthier Future

Euronews

04-06-2025

As awareness grows around the importance of balanced diets and healthier lifestyles, actors across society - from policymakers to businesses and consumers - are working together to support positive change. At Suntory Beverage & Food Europe (SBFE), supporting healthier diets isn't a marketing line - it's been a strategic priority for over a decade.
Since 2015, we have taken decisive steps to reduce sugar across our core drinks – including beloved brands such as Orangina, Schweppes1, Ribena and Oasis – not because we had to, but because we believe people deserve better choices that still taste great.
We've committed to helping consumers make positive choices without compromising on taste, quality, or trust. Reformulating drinks, especially iconic ones, is complex and often costly - but we've embraced the challenge head-on. We've reformulated over 300 drinks and cut added sugar by 30% across our portfolio in the last decade. Today, 60% of our drinks sold are under 5g of sugar/100mL.
This isn't just reformulation by spreadsheet. It's a shift that touches every part of our business - from R&D and consumer insight to branding and packaging. And it all starts with one belief: better drinks shouldn't come at the expense of great taste.
Our consumer approach is shaped by two Japanese principles: Gemba - going to where real decisions are made - and Seikatsusha - recognising the full complexity of people's lives. We don't just rely on traditional research; we go to the source. This lens helps us innovate drinks that genuinely fit into people's routines, values and expectations. Sugar plays a functional role in taste and texture, and every market has different preferences and regulations. That's why there's no one-size-fits-all solution - and that's exactly the point.
Achieving a great taste for sugar reduced products is a bit like a quest for the Holy Grail for every passionate technologist. And even more knowing there is no one size fits all.
In France, for example, we gradually reduced the sugar content in our recipes to accustom our consumers palates to less sweet tastes. In 2024, for Oasis Tropical, one of our iconic drinks in France, we launched a recipe with a 15% sugar reduction (v 2023) and a soaring 38% reduction since the original recipe in 2006. This work has been done in 5 stages of sugar reduction moving from 10.7g/100mL of sugar to 6.6/100mL.
To support this kind of country-specific reformulation, we've invested in R&D facilities across Europe - including a €2 million lab near Paris and others in Spain and the UK. These centres allow us to fine-tune recipes and flavour profiles with local teams, ensuring consistent progress without compromising what people love. We rely on our strong science and technology capabilities in Japan, home to our innovation centre of excellence, working in close collaboration with our global R&D teams to deliver the local tastes that European consumers love.
We also believe in informed choice. That's why we are a keen signatory of the EU Code of Conduct on Responsible Food Business and Marketing Practices, one of the first deliverables of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy.
But we did not stop there, and in fact introduced our own Responsible Code of Marketing and Communications in 2024. It includes clear commitments: we don't directly market to anyone under 16, we ensure nutritional transparency on pack and online, ensuring claims are true, proven and non-misleading. It's how we hold ourselves accountable and make our values visible.
In addition, through UNESDA, the European Soft Drinks Association, SBFE has also joined industry peers to commit to reduce average added sugars in European soft drinks, and not to sell or market soft drinks with sugar in schools.
Lasting change requires a regulatory environment that encourages innovation, rather than restricting it. With our operations across different European countries, fragmented regulation across countries can be a barrier to business growth and development, undermining the EU single market and also causing confusion for consumers. The Commission's ambition to ensure that Europe remains competitive in food innovation is an important step in the right direction, and should be enabled by a science-based regulatory framework.
We support frameworks that offer consistency, incentivise reformulation, and empower consumers through clear, science-based front-of-pack labelling. It's essential that these systems also recognise reformulation progress which is why we advocate for a non-discriminatory algorithm that accounts for reformulation efforts in fat, sugar and salt (FFS). In this reformulation journey, it is essential to have certainty about the safety and efficiency of our ingredients. That is why we actively support the ongoing re-evaluation of the sweeteners used in our drinks.
At SBFE, our vision of Growing for Good means making choices that create lasting, positive impact; for people, for the planet, and for the communities we serve. Sugar reduction is just one part of that journey, but it's a powerful one. It reflects our commitment to evolve what our drinks can be, and to support healthier, more sustainable lifestyles.
By the end of 2025, we expect to reach a 32% reduction in added sugar - just shy of our original 35% target. But this is not a finish line. By 2030, we aim to reduce total sugars across our portfolio by more than 35%, building on the momentum we've created.
We believe that the bigger we grow, the greater our ability - and responsibility - to do good. That's why Growing for Good isn't just a company ambition. It's a mindset. It shapes how we act as a business, and how we grow as individuals: learning new things, trying new things, and constantly striving to be better.