Strong partnerships, a 24/7 portfolio and unrivalled market execution

We believe that strong partnerships are fundamental to growth. With our vision to be the leading 24/7 beverage partner, we strive with determination to be the first choice and preferred partner for collaboration. Hand in hand with The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC), Monster, all our brand partners and suppliers, and alongside our customers, we are winning with agility, innovation and a future-focused approach.

Our priority categories of Sparkling, Energy and Coffee represent close to 80% of the revenue of the business, with significant headroom for growth, driven by increased consumer consumption and share gains, supported by innovation, strong customer relationships and unrivalled market execution.

Our partnership with TCCC is at the heart of our 24/7 portfolio success, starting with our core focus behind our wide range of excellent sparkling brands, which are loved across all our markets.

Likewise, with Monster we are able to offer high- quality energy brands across the price point spectrum – from Predator and Monster to Burn.

In 2023, our coffee strategy with Costa Coffee and Caffè Vergnano worked very well across the mass-premium and premium segments, with volume growth over 30%.

Building on our strong relationships with both TCCC and Brown-Forman, we were pleased to launch ready-to-drink Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola in several markets with more planned for 2024.

In Premium Spirits, our portfolio was enhanced with the acquisition of Finlandia. This highly regarded vodka brand paves the way for incremental growth for our core portfolio, through enhanced mixability and relevance in strategically important channels, such as HoReCa.

Investing for growth

Throughout 2023, we invested in technology, innovation, partnerships, and in building our bespoke capabilities, undertaking more digital transformations and integrations than ever before. This will ensure we remain competitive, agile and ready for future growth.

We have one of the strongest sales teams in the industry thanks to consistent investment behind our comprehensive development programme, Sales Academy. We recognise that the capabilities of our sales teams are critical to our success and the success of our customers.

Similarly, in 2023, our Data and Analytics Academy was rolled out across all business units and functions to accelerate a culture of data-driven and insight-led decision making.

Throughout the year, we invested in programmes to simplify our business and make our colleagues’ lives easier. For example, Project Oxygen is reducing complexity to enable focus on value-adding activities, always having the customer experience in mind.

Meanwhile, we continued to strengthen the diversity of our workforce through workplace inclusion activities and with steady progress towards gender balance. With employee engagement scores rising further in 2023, it is an encouraging sign that our approach to people and culture is on the right track.

Opening up a more sustainable future 

In 2023, our global industry leadership in sustainability was confirmed when, for the seventh time, we were rated the world’s most sustainable beverage company by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). We now have the highest scores and rankings in ten of the most- recognised ESG ratings, including CDP Climate and Water, ISS ESG, MSCI ESG, Sustainalytics, FTSE4Good and Vigeo Eiris.

Critically, we made great progress towards our Mission 2025 goals as well as our aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 and have a net positive impact on biodiversity in critical areas of our value chain. All this progress is the result of our clear vision and targets in sustainability, our bold and entrepreneurial mindset, and our strong belief that sustainability is a true creator of growth and value for our business, our partners and our customers.

Reflecting on some highlights from 2023, Romania became our first market to have all three elements of plastic packaging circularity. With the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme which we championed, collection rates will be significantly increased in the market. In 2023, we also invested in in-house recycling capability in Romania, building on similar investments in Italy and Poland. With the investment in Romania, we are able to produce 100% of our plastic bottles from recycled material. In this way, we close the circle so that the bottles we put into the market will be returned, recycled and given new life as a new bottle. This is just one example as, by the end of 2023, we had deposit return schemes in six of our markets and 42% of the plastic we used in our bottles across our EU and Swiss markets was rPET.

With our business developers in Greece

Strong financial performance

Our clear purpose and vision, trusting partnerships, unbeatable portfolio, consistent investment, excellent market execution by a customer-focussed, talented and compassionate team have resulted in a third year of double-digit growth and record profits. This year, I am deeply proud of the team as together, we crossed a historic milestone exceeding for the first time €10 billion of revenue and €1 billion of comparable EBIT. In this year of strong financial performance, we launched a share buyback programme, further increasing our returns to shareholders.

Participating in a panel discussion at the opening of our rPET facility opening in Romania