As Carlsberg, Britvic, Lebanon’s SMLC Top a Crowded Field
PepsiCo has, for the first time, named two winners of its International Beverages Bottler of the Year award, recognising both Carlsberg Britvic from the United Kingdom and SMLC from Lebanon for 2025 performance. Willemsen, CEO of International Beverages at PepsiCo, announced the decision on 11 June, noting that system-wide performance was close enough that a single award was not viable.
Carlsberg Britvic was formed in early 2025 when Carlsberg Group completed its acquisition of Britvic. The newly unified business closed out the year with Pepsi MAX establishing itself as the leading brand in the UK carbonated soft drinks category, alongside a resurgence in 7UP volumes and the introduction of Gatorade Hydration Enhancers. The company had already won PepsiCo’s Europe Bottler of the Year title in April 2026 before taking the global award. Drinkabl.media’s May coverage of PepsiCo’s bottling infrastructure expansion in Abu Dhabi traced the same system-wide investment logic at work across the franchise network.
SMLC, the Société Moderne Libanaise pour le Commerce, has bottled PepsiCo products in Lebanon since 1952, making it the oldest active bottling partner in the Levant. PepsiCo took a stake of more than a third in the company in 2001, with the Assaf family retaining the balance. SMLC holds what PepsiCo designates as the highest CSD market share of any bottler globally and has been a member of the Chairman’s Club since its inception, a designation reserved for operations carrying over 80% market share in their territory. Willemsen described 2025 as the company’s strongest year on record, achieved while Lebanon navigated sustained economic and political strain.
The decision to split the award reflects a structural reality inside PepsiCo’s franchise model: the bottler network is the execution layer for volume, distribution reach, and category penetration in each market. A bottler outperforming in a stable, high-competition market and one maintaining growth through an active crisis are measuring different things. Treating them as equivalent is more commercially honest than forcing a ranking. Drinkabl.media’s reporting on Carlsberg in the Italian market earlier this year showed the same brand group navigating divergent commercial conditions across geographies simultaneously.
The finalists, Asahi Beverages in Australia, CCU in Latin America, and Lotte Akhtar Beverages in Pakistan, were formally acknowledged alongside the two recipients. As PepsiCo continues expanding franchise capacity in growth markets, the pressure on bottlers to deliver both volume and resilience is only getting harder to satisfy with a single benchmark.
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