Food and Beverage Consumption Characteristics

Question: Discuss about the Food and Beverage Consumption Characteristics. Answer: Introduction: Australian consumers are becoming extremely health conscious in the recent days. While considering the marketing environmental factor with regards to society, it can be said that Coca Cola Amatil (CCA) is one such organization in the food and beverage industry, which is facing tremendous impact in holding market share. Individuals are looking for some particular health attributes, where there is no artificial color, flavor or sugar filled material. In comparison to other food categories, indulgent snacks and beverages of Coca Cola Amatil have just grown five percent in the last year. Coca Cola Amatil has wide range of products in food and beverage category starting from potato chips to soft drinks, but all its products are consisted of high fat, carbon and sugar. Also added flavor, artificial color and preservatives are the crucial reasons for which it can be considered as unhealthy. Australians are becoming health conscious and they are demanding natural and transparent products. Such change in consumer preference can be categorized under socio-cultural factor, which is impacting the growth of Coca Cola Amatil. This macro-environmental factor is the reason for fallen sales of CCA in the recent years especially in Australia. It is expected that product innovation and advanced marketing strategies will boost the sales in future years but the cost of manufacturing, changing demographics and fluctuating economy is hampering product procurement. However, CCA will need to satisfy its consumers by addressing their preference so that their market share increases and it becomes more sustainable in competition. While responding to the change in consumer preference, Coca Cola Amatil needs to concentrate more on product diversification than corporate expansion. It needs to expand its product categories which consumer will prefer such as dairy, water and energy drinks. All these product categories have less fat, cholesterol, sugar and artificial flavor, which consumers will accept in the recent years. Zero-sugar carbonated drinks and energy drinks have very less sugar content. On the other hand, Sui et al. 2017 opined that snacks such as nut butter, pistachios, walnuts, dried plums and tomato juice are not having awareness in the society. Therefore, CCA has the opportunity to introduce such products through which consumers will get new taste and healthy as well as nutritious benefits. In this way the organization can address the challenge that it is facing in the recent years. It can be said that the external environment of CCA is extremely competitive with lots of substitute companies. Howeve r, it has the capability of investing in RD and finally ending up with new products. It is prominent that the only way to address consumer preference changing challenge is by following product diversification. While summing up it can be said that Coca Cola Amatil is facing socio-cultural change in the marketing environment as consumers explicitly prefer healthier food items. In a response to such change, CCA has the opportunity to ensure product diversification strategy in the low fat categories such as energy drinks, dairy and nuts. However, CCA will need to bear huge promotional and advertisement costs. Reference List Coca-Cola Amatil Loses Its Fizz, Super Retail Drops On Restructuring. 2017.ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-26/result-wrap-coca-cola-amatil-loses-its-fizz-super-retail/7787842. Cross, Cassie. 2017. "Big Australian Trends - Part Two | Unique Health Products".Unique Health Products. https://uhp.com.au/big-australian-trends-part-two/. Our Brands. 2017.Ccamatil.Com. https://www.ccamatil.com/en/our-businesses-and-brands/our-brands. Sui, Zhixian, Weng Kei Wong, Jimmy Chun Yu Louie, and Anna Rangan. 2017. "Discretionary Food and Beverage Consumption and its Association with Demographic Characteristics, Weight Status, and Fruit and Vegetable Intakes in Australian Adults."Public Health Nutrition20 (2): 274-281.