Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) has expanded its Relentless Zero Sugar range to maintain momentum behind the brand with its latest flavour launch, Watermelon.

The new, refreshingly fruity, zero sugar flavour is designed to fuel additional growth of the Relentless brand, which is worth nearly £52 million – up 12.9 per cent in value and 43.7 per cent in volume over the past year.

It builds on the successful launch of the Relentless Zero Sugar Raspberry and Peach flavours last summer, which have already added more than £5.3m to the energy drinks category in less than a year.

Rolling out now, Relentless Zero Sugar Watermelon comes in an eye-catching white, black, pink and vibrant green can design with the recognisable Relentless ‘R’ motif in the centre, coming in plain and price-marked 500ml packs for shoppers to enjoy on-the-go.

The new variant will also help retailers tap into the growth of the wider energy drinks sector – now worth £1.71 billion and enjoying 13.6 per cent value growth and 7.8 per cent volume growth in GB over the last year. This is, in part, being driven by the increased popularity of sugar-free energy drinks which are now worth £305m, up 26.1 per cent in value and 22.9 per cent in volume in the last 12 months, with Relentless’ sister brand Monster taking the No.1 sugar free energy drink spot with Monster Ultra.

“The Energy drinks segment has established itself as one of the key value and volume growth drivers within soft drinks, adding more than £205m to the category over the last year,” Pippa Collins, associate director of commercial development at CCEP GB, said.

“This is largely due to the segment becoming more mainstream over the last decade, appealing to more consumers on more occasions and this is thanks to the arrival of new flavours, functionality and zero sugar options like the Relentless Zero Sugar range. Innovation continues to be incredibly important to the segment, delivering almost a quarter of energy drinks growth and we’re confident that this new Relentless Zero Sugar Watermelon variant will contribute to this moving forward so would recommend that retailers get stocked up.”

Retailers can drive excitement in-store with POS materials and digital downloads, available from My.CCEP.com.