With its sales for soda on a downward spiral Coca Cola has decided to move into the milk business.
The company has announced that it plans to offer a milk product different from what is available in stores and that it will come with a much higher price tag.
According to USA Today , a Coke exec said at a conference last week that the company’s Fairlife will offer “milk that’s premiumized and tastes better and we’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we’re used to buying.”
Coke’s, Chief Customer Officer Sandy Douglas, says that the milk, which will be produced by a venture with 92 family farms, will launch sometime next month.
The soda giant’s new milk will contain 50 percent more protein and 30 percent less sugar than normal milk . A filtering process will be used to make the milk lactose-free.
“We’re going to be investing in the milk business for a while to build the brand so it won’t rain money in the early couple of years. But when you do it well, it rains money later,” said Douglas.
A spokesperson from Failife describes the product, which has been nicknamed “Milka-Cola,” as ‘innovative ultra-filtered milk,’ reports The Guardian.
Fairlife is scheduled to launch its U.S. brand next month. It is already available in Minnesota, where its launch was teamed up with print ads that some consumer’s state they found sexy, while others called it weird.
Coca Cola has made a pledge to help reduce the number of calories that consumers get from drinking soda.
Dairy Tod ay, reports that U.S. milk sales are down by 8 percent over the past decade. The report also says that half of adult Americans do not drink milk.
A spokeswoman from Fairlife says that there are no current plans to sell Milka-Cola outside the United States. Coke is still feeling the painful effects of their failed attempt to sell bottled tap water called Dasani in the UK in 2004.
Coke has struggled in part due to health concerns over its sugar-packed sodas and juices, as well as artificially sweetened diet drinks that comprise a large amount of the company’s product list
The ability of dairy to replace lost soda revenue isn’t a guaranteed thing. Alternative products like almond milk and Greek yogurt are high sellers, but will people buy into milk produced by a soda company that costs twice as much as traditional milk, only time will tell.