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Guy Wollaert

Looking for natural, low calorie molecules

Wollaert spoke on how consumer demand coupled with technology is leading to the creation of “personalised beverages”, on water consumption by the company globally as well as in India, and ongoing research that could be critical to finding low-calorie natural sweeteners as consumers globally look to switch to healthier alternatives.

Q: How does a beverage company leverage technology to respond to consumer demand?

GW: We look at technology in two domains. One, in the digital world that allows us to connect with consumers in novel ways. For instance, digital marketing through social media is a new reality enabled by digital technology.

Then there is technology in the physical space, which is all about the atoms, genomics, the living and inert world. We do (a) huge amount of work leveraging technology for packaging…, lightweighting our bottles. We also use polymer science to have bio-based packaging from plants rather than from fossil fuels.

And soon it’s not going to be far out when we will be talking about “personalized” beverages based on people’s personal genes. Because for $99 (devices/tests) you can know how your body is made up and with certain types of devices that track your physical movement, you can also track the level of hydration in your body, and replenish it accordingly and in a certain way.

Q: What happens to markets like India where providing a cold beverage in rural areas is still a challenge? How does technology enable reach and distribution?

GW: We have the solar cooler initiative in India. Here you look at costs, sustainability, choice and availability. The solar cooler is a great example of how we offer availability blended with sustainability.

At the same time, there is a strong social innovation where we enable women to become micro entrepreneurs and reach places where our trucks cannot go in and drive availability. We are doing this in AMEA (Asia, Middle East and Africa) region and exporting this to Ghana.

Then, on the other extreme, there is innovation that requires research and development. On the front end, as an example of leveraging technology and research, we are doing deep research into polymer science to look for packaging materials (new plastics) that allow us to continue to reduce the size of the pack, thereby offering choices in smaller sizes and effectively less calories and also lower price point, but still guarantee (a) high quality beverage…

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