Strongbow, the UK’s favourite cider[2], has announced its Strongbow Original, Strongbow Cloudy Apple and Strongbow Dark Fruit variants are now made without artificial sweeteners, colours or flavours.  Strongbow, whose ciders use approximately 25% of all apples grown in Britain, is firmly asserting its position as the category leader with this move.

Leading the charge, Strongbow aims to transform the cider category in 2019 and the move to focus on more natural products is just the first step in achieving this. The brand is adding calorie and nutritional information labelling to all its packaging to enable consumers to easily find the ingredients and calorie content of their drink.

Using millions of apples grown in Herefordshire orchards, and with hundreds of years of cider making experience, Strongbow has been able to remove all artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners, with no effect on taste[3]. HEINEKEN is continuing its cider-making journey with its ‘Better Cider’ programme, to ensure a sustainable future for this great British industry.

Cindy Tervoort, UK Marketing Director at HEINEKEN, says:With the cider category hugely important to the on-trade, we’ve been on a mission to make our Strongbow offering even better and future-proof it for generations to come. Research tells us that consumer attitudes are changing; they are thinking more about what they consume and where it’s from – which includes being more mindful about ingredients too – so with this change, we’re leading the way with Strongbow as you would expect from the No.1 cider brand.”

As a pioneer of mainstream cider and leader of the category, Strongbow Original is the UK’s most popular cider and sees 300,000 pints poured every day[4]. Strongbow Dark Fruit, the UK’s number two cider brand, accounts for 84% of the flavoured cider market[5]. Its new Dual Fount enables licensees to pour both Strongbow Original and Strongbow Dark Fruit from one fount for the first time; research shows stocking the two leading cider brands alongside one another has been proven to boost rate of sale by a staggering 44%[6]. Strongbow Cloudy Apple completes the range and is available from 5,000 distribution points.

  • Strongbow, the UK’s favourite cider[1], has announced that all of its variants will be made with no artificial sweeteners, colours or flavours – setting itself apart from competitors
  • Taste profiles of all Strongbow cider variants have remained the same and have been positively tested with thousands of loyal Strongbow customers

[1] CGA Strategy 52 w/e 26 January 2019

[2] CGA Strategy 52 w/e 26 January 2019

[3] Savanta, quantitative monadic in hall test, n=311 Strongbow Dark Fruit drinkers, current vs new recipe. Fieldwork conducted in Long Eaton and Leeds, April 2019; Source: Cardinal Research, quantitative monadic in hall test, n=470 Strongbow Original qdrinkers, current vs new recipe. Fieldwork conducted in Watford, Long Eaton and Leeds, Feb 2019

[4] CGA Strategy 52 w/e 26 January 2019

[5] CGA Strategy 52 w/e 26 January 2019

[6] CGA CSDI Data to April 2018 – QTR TY vs YA. Versus stocking the second best-selling apple cider alongside Strongbow Dark Fruit