Coke and L'Oreal in healthy drink drive

Wed, 14 Mar 2007

Coca-Cola and L'Oreal are understood to be forming a partnership to develop a range of functional drinks. The first product is thought to be a non-carbonated drink designed to promote health.

The beverage, which could be launched as early as 2008, has been trademarked as a tea-based ready-to-drink product by Coca-Cola’s Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW) division.

The drink is provisionally called Lumaé and is understood to be targeting health-conscious women over the age of 25.

Though still in the early stages of its development, it is thought that Coca-cola will look to market Lumaé as a beauty brand as opposed to a soft drink.

Similar products have already proved popular with consumers, such as Coca-Cola's Love Body, which claims to burn calories and increase women’s bust size.

BPW is a joint venture between Nestlé, which has a stake of around 50% in L'Oreal, and Coke.

At the end of last year BPW announced it was refocusing its activities to develop black tea-based products.

The move aimed to allow the joint venture partners to develop products independently.