In its first redesign in more than 20 years, Barq’s Root Beer, a brand of The Coca-Cola Co., unveiled a completely new look to pay homage to the brand’s Gulf Coast heritage and classically crisp, bold flavor. 

Honest Tea, the Bethesda, Md.-based subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, will host “The Great Recycle” in New York City’s Time Square on April 30. Designed to support the city’s pledge to double recycle efforts by 2017, Honest Tea and its partners — GrowNYC, Recyclebank, Coca-Cola Live Positively, Global Inheritance and Five-Boro Green Services — will place a 30-foot-tall recycling bin in Times Square. The goal is to crowd-source recycle more than 45,000 plastic, glass and aluminum beverage containers in 10 hours on April 30, the company says.

The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, reported its solid first quarter 2012 results with strong volume and revenue growth as well as volume and value share gains across every non-alcohol ready-to-drink beverage category in which it competes, the company said. All geographic operating groups delivered volume growth in the quarter, with global volume increasing 5 percent, North American volume rising 2 percent and international volume growing 6 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Green Mountain Coffee ranked as the coffee brand of the year above Folgers, Dunkin’ Donuts and Millstone in Harris Interactive’s 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study.

Coca-Cola ranks as the No. 1 most valuable global beverage brand at $74.3 billion, according to the annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study by Millward Brown, New York City.

The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, as well as Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford Motor Co., Pittsburgh-based The H.J. Heinz Co., Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike Inc. and Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble announced the formation of the Plant PET Technology Collaborative (PTC), a strategic working group focused on accelerating the development and use of 100 percent plant-based PET materials and fiber in their products.

The Coca-Cola Foundation, the global philanthropic arm of Atlanta-based The Coca-Cola Co., awarded $26 million in grants to 85 community organizations during the first quarter of 2012. The grants support the foundation’s global priority areas, including the following: $9.7 million for water stewardship; $3.6 million for fitness and nutrition; $7.4 million for education; and $4.9 million for community recycling and other local priorities such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, youth development and civic initiatives.

Coca-Cola requires a deep and meaningful shared-value approach to appeal to consumers and stakeholders who increasingly judge companies and brands as much on the content of their character as the quality of the products and services they produce and market, according to a Cannes Lions presentation by Joseph Tripodi, executive vice president and chief marketing and commercial officer for The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta.

Coca-Cola India announced that the Coca-Cola system will invest an additional $3 billion in India through 2020 to further capture growth opportunities in the country’s fast-growing non-alcohol ready-to-drink (NARTD) beverage market. With the new investment, the Coca-Cola system now plans to invest $5 billion in India through 2020, the company noted.