The new bottle will be available starting this month in select states across the Northeast, including New York and Connecticut, as well as in California and Florida, before launching nationwide this summer. Coke describes the size as a “more sippable package,” and it will debut with the company’s most popular sodas like Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero Sugar at a suggested retail price of $1.59.
“We’ve been listening to consumers and they have been telling us they want something a little smaller and a little more easy to consume,” Alpa Sutaria, Coca-Cola’s general manager of sustainability, told CNN Business. “We took this opportunity to make a bottle with plastic that’s 100% recyclable.”
Meanwhile, the recycled plastic material will also be featured in 20-ounce bottles of Coke and Diet Coke in New York, California and Texas this month, as well as for the company’s Dasani and Smartwater brands in certain locations in the coming months.
Sutaria said developing the new packaging has been a “labor of love and great innovation” for Coca-Cola. The recycled plastic is cleaned, ground down and turned into grain-like flakes before being transformed into a new bottle.
She added that launch states were chosen because customers in those areas “are more sensitive to the challenges we have around sustainability issues.”
“We’re determined to innovate and to develop technology to minimize our impact,” she said, adding the company is “following through our commitment with real action.”
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