"Capri-Sun is not for kids"

Food watchdog organisation Foodwatch France asked Coca-Cola European Partners to no longer focus its Capri-Sun drink’s marketing on children. It feels the drink is not healthy for children at all.

Too sweet

Even though the drink is often found in a supermarket’s fruit juice section, it only contains 12 % of fruit juice and 19 grams of sugar. “Capri-Sun is sweeter than a Fanta”, says Foodwatch France. “The World Health Organization recommends banning children’s advertising when products are too sweet or contain added sugar. This is the case of Capri-Sun Multivitamin.”

Coca-Cola European Partners handles the soda manufacturer’s marketing for France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The company stated it does not target children below twelve with any of its advertising campaigns, which is in line with the European Union’s guidelines.

Foodwatch disagrees and says the use of cartoon characters on the packaging, the sponsored events and the communication clearly target little children. That is also why it launched a petition to complain about Coca-Cola European Partners’ approach.

New packaging

Coca-Cola says it is surprised about Foodwatch’s harsh words, considering its “transparent dialog” during the past year. It also added the amount of sugar is clearly mentioned on the packaging and the cartoon characters will soon disappear when Capri-Sun gets its entirely new packaging after the summer.

Consumer organization BUEC’s study shows that cartoon characters are most often used to promote unhealthy items. It investigated about 100 products from thirteen countries and only once was a cartoon character used to promote fruit or vegetables.