Don’t want a cold soda? Try a glass of Coke milk

▶ ▶ Coke Cokebetsbets on onhigh- high-protein, protein, low-sugar low-sugarmilkmilk to beat the real stuff stuffffff ▶ ▶ “We lookatlook at milk, honestly, as one of nature’s superfoods”

In its quest to slake the world’s thirst, Coca-colaCoca is intent on making milk a billion billion-dollar brand. But not just any kind ofo milk. Coke has joined forces with a dairy cooperative to create Fairlife,Fairl which produces a filtered, high- high-protein,p low-sugar, lactose-free desig designer milk also called Fairlife. It costs about $4 for a 52-ounce bottle— more than organic milk and about doub double what the conventional stuff sells for.f In its first year on shelves, Fairli Fairlife reached about $90 million in sales, giving a sizable boost to the specialty milk category, which includes milk withw more calcium or no lactose.

Cok Coke is part-owner of Fairlife throu through its Venturing and Emerging Brand Brands group, which has backed Zico cocon coconut water, Honest Tea, and Fuze juice drink. Fairlife Chief Executive Office Officer Steve Jones worked at Coke as chiefc marketing officer from 200 2000 to 2003. While there, he play played a role in moving the beverage companyc beyond its Minute Maid froze frozen orange juice business to highermarg margin products, such as Simply juice, a billi billion-dollar brand that’s challenged mark market leader Tropicana—owned by riva rival Pepsico— with its clear bottles. “It proved to me you can take a co commodity and transform it into a dynamic high- growth category,” Jo Jones says of Simply. “We can do tht the same to milk.”

M Milk is only one of the latest attem attempts by Coke to offset declining so soda consumption with healthier prod products. “We look at milk, honestly, as one of nature’s superfoods,” says Melanie Kahn, vice president for mark marketing at Fairlife.

Jon Jones isn’t the only branding executive withw Coke on his résumé peddling milk. Dean Foods, the largest dairy proc processor in the U.S., has put Greg Schw Schwarz, a former brand manager for Coke Coke’s HI-C fruit drink business, in charg charge of its marketing.

De Dean has co-branded its regional milks under one umbrella called Dairy Dairypure. The drinks are hormoneand a antibiotic-free. The company is relea releasing a lactose-free variety this year. Dean has 60 milk-processing plant plants around the country. “We