Ten soft drinks on shelves this week. Read what’s really in them.
Surface A canonical weekly audit for the soft drinks category. The data on the back of every can and bottle, translated into the units the moment of decision uses — teaspoons of sugar per portion, salt sachets, FSA traffic lights, per-100ml versus per-portion divergence. Pure data; no editorial commentary on this surface.
Data captured Monday 18 May 2026, 09:00 BST. Best-seller signal: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi online category listings; Grocer / NIQ Britain’s Biggest Brands 2026 Top 100; Statista UK soft-drink convenience-channel ranking 2024. Methodology: scansmart.uk/methodology.
Ranked by retailer best-seller tag.
These are this week’s soft drinks top sellers as the retailers and trade press identify them. Ranking is not by sugar; ranking by sugar would put SCANSMART in the role of curator, which is the wrong role. The retailers and trade press curate; SCANSMART analyses.
| Rank | Product / Brand | Pack / serving | Sugar (g/100ml · tsp/portion) | Salt (g/100ml · sachets/portion) | FSA RAG (S · Sa · SatF) | pH | Source · verified? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coca-Cola Original Taste — Coca-Cola | 330ml can · 330ml serving | 10.6g / 100ml · 8.75 tsp per 330ml can | 0g / 100ml · 0 sachets per can | S Amber/100ml · Red/portion · Sa Green · SatF Green | not in this audit pass | OFF 5449000000996 · verified |
| 2 | Pepsi Max — Pepsi (PepsiCo) | 330ml can · 330ml serving | 0g / 100ml · 0 tsp per 330ml can | 0g / 100ml · 0 sachets per can | S Green · Sa Green · SatF Green | not in this audit pass | OFF 4060800309242 · verified |
| 3 | Coca-Cola Zero Sugar — Coca-Cola | 330ml can · 330ml serving | 0g / 100ml · 0 tsp per 330ml can | 0g / 100ml · 0 sachets per can | S Green · Sa Green · SatF Green | not in this audit pass | OFF 5449000131805 · verified |
| 4 | Lucozade Energy Original — Lucozade (Suntory) | 380ml bottle · 380ml serving | 4.47g / 100ml · 4.25 tsp per 380ml | 0.088g / 100ml · 0.67 sachets per 380ml | S Amber/100ml · Red/portion · Sa Green · SatF Green | not in this audit pass | OFF 5054267013384 · verified |
| 5 | Red Bull Energy Drink — Red Bull | 250ml can · 250ml serving | 11g / 100ml · 6.88 tsp per 250ml can | 0.1g / 100ml · 0.5 sachets per can | S Amber/100ml · Red/portion · Sa Green · SatF Green | not in this audit pass | OFF 9002490215408 · verified (80mg caffeine/can) |
| 6 | Sprite — Coca-Cola | 330ml can | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | Best-seller signal (Grocer 2026 + Statista 2024) · unverified |
| 7 | Fanta Orange — Coca-Cola | 330ml can | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | Best-seller signal (Grocer 2026 + Statista 2024) · unverified |
| 8 | Dr Pepper — Coca-Cola (Keurig Dr Pepper outside US) | 330ml can | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | Best-seller signal (Grocer 2026 + Statista 2024) · unverified |
| 9 | Robinsons Fruit Squash No Added Sugar — Britvic | 1L bottle · 50ml dilute serving | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | Best-seller signal (Britvic UK brand portfolio) · unverified |
| 10 | Schweppes Tonic Water — Coca-Cola (Schweppes) | 250ml can | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | unverified this audit pass | Best-seller signal (Coca-Cola UK brand portfolio) · unverified |
FSA per-100ml drinks thresholds: sugar Green ≤2.5g / Amber 2.5–11.25g / Red >11.25g; salt Green ≤0.3g / Amber 0.3–0.75g / Red >0.75g; sat fat Green ≤0.75g / Amber 0.75–2.5g / Red >2.5g. Per-portion drinks Red over-ride for sugar >13.5g per declared serving. Teaspoon of sugar = 4g; salt sachet = 0.5g. Caffeine declared in source field where present on pack. Unverified rows are named per best-seller signal but label data is NOT transcribed in this audit pass — flagged honestly, not estimated.
Label transcriptions, top 3 verified rows.
Transcribed verbatim from the Open Food Facts product page for each barcode on the capture date. Square brackets and parenthetical groupings preserved as published. No editorial paraphrasing.
1. Coca-Cola Original Taste 330ml can
Carbonated water, sugar, colour (caramel E150d), acidifier (phosphoric acid), natural flavourings including caffeine.
Source: world.openfoodfacts.org/product/5449000000996 · captured 18 May 2026.
2. Pepsi Max 330ml can
Carbonated water, colour (caramel E150d), sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K), acids (phosphoric acid, citric acid), flavourings (including caffeine), preservative (potassium sorbate). Contains a source of phenylalanine.
Source: world.openfoodfacts.org/product/4060800309242 · captured 18 May 2026.
3. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar 330ml can
Carbonated water, colour (caramel E150d), acid (phosphoric acid), sweeteners (aspartame, acesulfame K), natural flavourings, caffeine flavouring, acidity regulator (sodium citrates).
Source: world.openfoodfacts.org/product/5449000131805 · captured 18 May 2026.
Methodology and sources.
Full methodology: scansmart.uk/methodology (linked above; reused across every Door 4 piece). Ranking by retailer best-seller tag and trade-press market position. FSA per-100ml and per-portion drinks thresholds applied. Teaspoons (4g sugar = 1 tsp) and salt sachets (0.5g salt = 1 sachet) as the visual conventions. Capture-date stamped on every figure: Monday 18 May 2026, 09:00 BST.
Sources: Open Food Facts product pages (per row in the table above); Tesco / Sainsbury’s / Aldi online category listings; Grocer / NIQ Britain’s Biggest Brands 2026 Top 100; Statista 2024 UK soft-drink convenience-channel sales-value ranking; FSA published thresholds for traffic-light calculation. No Wikipedia citations per §SCANSMART Method institutional-grade discipline.
Unverified rows flagged honestly. Five rows fully verified with label data; five rows named per best-seller signal but label data NOT transcribed in this audit pass — not estimated. pH dimension queued for next soft-drinks rotation with peer-reviewed dental-erosion citations.
Next entries.
Monday 25 May 2026: bread. The salt-per-slice picture across the big-three.
Monday 1 June 2026: yoghurts and dairy. The big-brand vs supermarket own-label readability delta.
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The decision is yours. SCANSMART is a food literacy and decision-support platform; it is not a medical device and does not provide medical or dental advice.
The Weekly Supermarket Checkout, Decoded · Surface A canonical · Monday 18 May 2026 · Methodology version v0.1 · SCANSMART Ltd, Co. No. 17128797, England & Wales.