Coca-Cola company is planning to launch a range of energy drinks for the first time on its own brand name .
According to Reuters the giant company was working on plans to launch new drinks which would be branded “Coca-Cola Energy” and “Coca-Cola Energy No Sugar” and made with naturally-derived caffeine and guarana extract.
This comes months after the company announced its interest in manufacturing marijuana drinks market for a possible entry that would expand the world’s largest soft drink maker’s ambitions further away from sugary sodas.
Coke would join a rush by major alcohol makers and a cigarette company to test the cannabis market and find partners ahead of the October 17 launch of legal recreational marijuana in Canada.
The company initially took a nearly 17 percent stake in energy drinks maker Monster Beverage Corp in 2015, making Coke the largest shareholder, to sample at a distance the market in which it had a small presence with its NOS and Full throttle brands.
However, the partnership has turned rocky with Coke currently in arbitration with Monster Beverage over the launch of the Coke energy drinks, as it would put it in direct competition with Monster and violate their initial 2015 agreement.
“We have submitted the difference in interpretation to an arbitration panel for resolution, which is the mechanism agreed by the Coca-Cola Co and Monster in the original agreements,” a Coca-Cola spokesperson said.
Analysts, however, were skeptical whether consumers would take to Coke’s energy drinks under a brand mainly associated with fizzy sodas.