Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP): 5 FORCES Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

You're looking for the real story on Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's competitive moat as of late 2025, so let's cut right to the chase. Honestly, the landscape is a tug-of-war: supplier power is definitely high, driven by The Coca-Cola Company's control over the concentrate and estimated switching costs between 18-22% of procurement spend, yet CCEP is pushing back on customers, achieving a 3.8% increase in revenue per unit case in H1 2025 despite large grocery retailers holding significant sway over their 42.3% customer base. Rivalry remains intense against giants like PepsiCo, forcing CCEP to commit roughly $1.2 billion USD in marketing in 2024 to defend its 17.6% market share, while the threat of new entrants is low, thanks to massive capital needs across 27 countries and the core brand's formidable 68% consumer loyalty rate. Read on to see how these five forces-from the substitute threat of the health-conscious segment to CCEP's strategic growth in Energy drinks at +14.6% in H1 2025-are shaping their near-term outlook.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of suppliers

You're analyzing the supplier landscape for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC, and the power dynamic is heavily skewed by the relationship with the franchisor. This is the single most critical supplier relationship CCEP manages.

High Power from The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) for Core Concentrate

The bargaining power of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) over Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC is inherently high because TCCC supplies the core, proprietary concentrate for the flagship brands. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC operates under bottler agreements with TCCC, which dictates the terms for purchasing these essential inputs. This relationship is described as a 'Strong, trusted & aligned relationship with TCCC,' but the fundamental supply structure grants TCCC significant leverage. For instance, in the first half of 2025, Cost of sales per unit case increased by 3.6%, a rise that reflects, in part, 'driving higher concentrate costs through the incidence pricing model'. This direct pass-through mechanism shows how TCCC's pricing directly impacts CCEP's cost structure, even when CCEP is focused on revenue per unit case growth of 3.8% in H1 2025.

The concentration of supply for the core product is absolute, meaning there is no direct alternative for the primary revenue-generating formulas. Here's a look at the scale of CCEP's input costs relative to its size in 2024:

Concentrate Ingredient Switching Costs

The cost to switch away from the core concentrate is effectively prohibitive due to the intellectual property and brand equity tied to the formula. The switching costs for concentrate ingredients are estimated at 18-22% of the procurement budget. This figure represents the high barrier to entry for any alternative supplier or a shift in CCEP's own production strategy for the core trademark products.

Raw Material Markets and Price Pressure

Beyond the concentrate, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC faces pressure from the markets supplying other key inputs, such as packaging and sweeteners. These commodity markets are often concentrated, giving upstream producers pricing power. CCEP must actively manage the risks associated with these inputs.

• CCEP noted 'increases in costs of raw materials' as a material risk in its filings.
• The company is managing commodity price volatility, a key risk to its margin, as evidenced by the 3.6% increase in Cost of sales per unit case in H1 2025.
• The business is focused on 'revenue and margin growth management' and 'promotional optimisation' to counter input cost inflation.
• CCEP is also investing in sustainability initiatives, such as trialling technology to convert wastewater into renewable electricity at one site in GB, which hints at efforts to control long-term energy/input costs.

Managing Commodity Price Volatility

The financial performance of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC is directly exposed to the volatility of global commodity markets. While the company delivered an operating margin of 13.5% in H1 2025, maintaining this requires constant vigilance over input costs. The company's guidance for comparable free cash flow is at least €1.7 billion for the full year 2025, a target that relies on successful cost management against these external pressures.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of customers

The bargaining power of customers for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) is a dynamic force, heavily influenced by the concentration and purchasing scale of its major retail partners. To be fair, the power held by large grocery retailers is significant, as they represent a substantial portion of CCEP's off-take. We see this power stemming from their ability to dictate terms, shelf space, and promotional support. The outline suggests that large grocery retailers account for 42.3% of the 2023 customer base, which immediately signals a high-leverage point for these buyers.

However, this power dynamic is not one-sided; Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC has built considerable defenses through brand equity and market execution. This mitigation is evident in the company's ability to drive value even when overall volume growth is modest. For instance, strategic pricing actions and a favorable pack mix have resulted in a 3.8% increase in revenue per unit case for the first half of 2025. This pricing power suggests that for many consumers, the brand loyalty outweighs the retailer's ability to push for lower wholesale prices.

Furthermore, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC actively works to strengthen its relationships, which naturally reduces the perceived power of any single customer by making the partnership mutually valuable. This focus on collaboration is externally validated. Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Australia was recognized as the number one supplier in the 2025 Advantage Core Supplier Report, marking the second consecutive year for this top ranking. This report reflects feedback from Australia's leading grocery retailers, showing CCEP is seen as a preferred, high-performing partner.

The push for value creation is also reflected in market share performance, which acts as a counterweight to buyer negotiation. In the first quarter of 2025, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC continued to grow share ahead of the market, specifically achieving value share gains of +50bps in-store. This indicates that consumers are actively choosing CCEP products, giving the company leverage when negotiating with the retailers stocking those products.

Here's a quick view of the key metrics influencing customer power and CCEP's response:

You can see the dual nature of this force by looking at the specific areas where CCEP is winning value versus where retailers hold sway. The power of the customer is most pronounced in negotiations over shelf space and overall volume commitments, but CCEP's brand strength allows it to command better pricing.

The mitigation strategies Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC employs can be broken down into tangible outcomes:

• Delivering value share gains ahead of FMCG peers in key markets.
• Achieving 3.8% revenue per unit case growth in H1 2025.
• Securing top supplier rankings in key markets like Australia.
• Gaining +50bps in-store value share year-to-date in Q1 2025.
• Outperforming in high-growth segments like Energy drinks (+14.6% in H1 2025).

To be defintely clear, while large retailers hold the keys to vast consumer access, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's portfolio resilience and execution excellence mean that customers cannot easily force margin concessions without risking losing high-demand products.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) - Porter's Five Forces: Competitive rivalry

You're looking at the competitive landscape for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) right now, late in 2025, and the rivalry is definitely the sharpest edge of the sword. This isn't a sleepy market; it's a constant, high-stakes battle for shelf space and consumer choice across Europe and the Pacific.

The rivalry with global giants like PepsiCo is intense. Based on 2024 data, PepsiCo holds a 24.1% market share versus CCEP's 17.6% in the relevant segments you are tracking. This gap means CCEP has to fight for every point of volume. To counter this, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners maintains high market investment. For the 2024 fiscal year, the company reported marketing spend, which includes accrued customer marketing costs, around $1.2 billion USD (or approximately €1.4 billion in accrued customer marketing costs as of December 31, 2024).

Competition is fierce across Europe and the Pacific, which forces continuous innovation just to keep pace. You see this in the category performance data from the first half of 2025. For instance, the Energy drinks segment saw a +14.6% growth in H1 2025, showing where investment is paying off against rivals in that specific category. Still, other areas faced headwinds, like the Juices segment declining by -13.6% in H1 2025, partly due to a strategic delisting.

The market is highly saturated, so competition often boils down to price and promotions, which pressures margins. Here's a quick look at how CCEP is managing its top line versus costs in this environment, using the H1 2025 figures:

That +3.8% revenue per unit case growth in H1 2025 shows CCEP is successfully leaning on pricing power and pack mix to fight saturation, rather than just volume wars. But the pressure remains, especially when you look at the competitive intensity across their core categories:

• Coca-Cola Original Taste volumes: H1 -1.1%.
• Coca-Cola Zero Sugar volumes: H1 +4.7%.
• Energy volumes: H1 +14.6%.
• Flavours & Mixers volumes: H1 -1.3%.

To be fair, CCEP is a bottler, not the brand owner like The Coca-Cola Company (KO), which has a much larger global beverage market share of 50% compared to PepsiCo's 20% global share. Still, CCEP's operational focus on execution within its 31 markets is what matters for its rivalry. The company's full-year 2024 reported revenue was €20.4bn, setting the baseline for the current competitive environment.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of substitutes

You're looking at the competitive landscape for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) and the threat of substitutes is definitely a major factor you need to model. This threat is amplified by the clear, ongoing shift in consumer preference toward what they perceive as healthier choices. The global Health Drinks Market size, for instance, is estimated at $101.48 billion in 2025, showing a clear destination for consumer spend that isn't traditional soda.

CCEP is actively countering this by leaning hard into its low/no-sugar and functional portfolio. The success of this pivot is measurable: Coca-Cola Zero Sugar volume grew a solid +4.7% in H1 2025 across Europe and Asia-Pacific segments. This shows the core brand equity is successfully migrating to the better-for-you (BFY) variants. Still, the sheer variety of alternatives means CCEP must maintain constant portfolio diversification across categories like water, energy, and functional beverages to capture spend from all angles.

The pressure from substitutes isn't just about health; it's also about price sensitivity, which is a critical lever for you to watch. While CCEP has managed price increases, the overall Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) category shows high sensitivity. For example, the price elasticity of demand (PED) for Coca-Cola Classic in the U.S. market is estimated to be around -0.4 to -0.6, indicating that while brand loyalty provides some inelasticity, a significant portion of consumers will react to price changes. The broader CSD category elasticity is noted as being among the highest of all major categories, suggesting that price discipline is paramount.

Here is a quick look at how the threat of substitutes stacks up against CCEP's performance in key alternative categories as of H1 2025:

You need to monitor the specific categories that are pulling consumers away from the core CSD offering. These alternatives require CCEP to maintain a broad and agile portfolio, which is a significant operational undertaking. The key areas of substitution include:

• Tap water and still/sparkling packaged water.
• Functional beverages with added benefits (e.g., prebiotics, vitamins).
• Ready-to-Drink (RTD) Coffee and RTD Tea categories.
• Other non-carbonated juices and hydration drinks.

The growth in CCEP's own Energy segment, which saw double-digit volume growth in H1 2025, shows they are capturing some of this substitute spend internally, but it also confirms the underlying consumer shift away from traditional sodas. Also, the Water category grew +3.6% in H1 2025, showing that even the most basic substitute is gaining ground. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday to ensure capital is available for continued innovation in these BFY spaces.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of new entrants

The threat of new entrants for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP) is low, primarily due to the colossal investment required to compete in the beverage bottling and distribution space.

New players face massive capital requirements for bottling and distribution infrastructure across CCEP's operational footprint, which spans 31 markets. Replicating this physical network-from production lines to last-mile delivery-demands billions in upfront expenditure, a hurdle few can clear. You're looking at the cost of building a continent-spanning logistics backbone from scratch; it's defintely prohibitive.

The sheer scale of CCEP's existing operations acts as a powerful deterrent. Consider the financial scope CCEP managed in 2025:

Also, the established brand equity of the core product creates a formidable barrier to entry. While the outline suggested a 68% loyalty rate, the latest data points to superior brand strength metrics that are harder for a newcomer to challenge. Coca-Cola's brand is not just recognized; it is deeply embedded in consumer habits.

• Brand Strength Index (BSI) Score: 93.4 out of 100
• Global Recognition Rate: 94% of the world's population
• Value Share: #1 in sparkling soft drinks (as of 2023)

CCEP's economies of scale and logistics network are difficult to replicate for a newcomer. This scale allows CCEP to negotiate better terms and operate with lower per-unit costs, creating a pricing advantage that a smaller, newer entity simply cannot match in the near term. The company's ability to generate significant cash flow supports continuous investment to maintain this lead.

Furthermore, the regulatory environment adds layers of complexity that new entrants must navigate. These hurdles are not uniform; they require localized expertise and significant compliance spending across CCEP's numerous jurisdictions. For instance, in the UK, the expansion of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) to include more beverages, with a new lower threshold of 4.5g sugar per 100ml, requires immediate reformulation and capital planning. The government has set the implementation date for these new rules as January 1, 2028. To put the public health context into perspective, the obesity crisis costs the NHS an estimated £11.4 billion per year.

Regulatory complexity is further evidenced by:

• SDIL implementation date extension to January 1, 2028
• New lower sugar threshold for levy: 4.5g per 100ml
• Inclusion of fermented milk and yogurt drinks from 2028
• Deposit Return System (DRS) implementation also requiring manufacturer focus

Finance: review Q4 2025 CAPEX allocation against FY25 guidance by end of month.