Danes boycotting US products like Coca-Cola, Carlsberg says

LONDON (Reuters) -Danish consumers are boycotting Coca-Cola, Carlsberg CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen said on Tuesday, noting that the brewer, which bottles the drink in Denmark, had seen Coca-Cola volumes decline while local rivals gain share.

Carlsberg, which also sells Kronenbourg beer and soft drinks like Tuborg Soda, said its Coke volumes in Denmark were "slightly down," and he said there is "a level of consumer boycott around U.S. brands."

Consumers have ditched brands like Tesla, products like U.S. whiskey and U.S. travel plans in protest over U.S. tariffs, foreign policy or Elon Musk's political activities.

The boycotts were sparked after President Donald Trump suggested that the U.S. should take over Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

In Denmark, some local brands have been gaining share at the expense of U.S. labels like Coke, Aarup-Andersen told investors on Carlsberg's first-quarter earnings call.

Coke declined to comment. The company often faces boycotts globally because of its prominence as a top-selling U.S. soda. Last year, its sales in Pakistan, Egypt and other Muslim-majority countries cratered as consumers switched to local brands in protest of U.S. support of Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas.

Coca-Cola now has been feeling the effects of a boycott from Hispanic consumers in the U.S. and Mexico over a video purportedly showing the company laying off its Latino staff and reporting them to immigration authorities. The company says the video is false.

Coke's CEO, James Quincey, said the company was focused on recovering from that boycott, which hit its business in the southern U.S. especially. Coke did not reference the boycott in Denmark during an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday, but said it was seeing some negative consumer sentiment in Europe.

Danish alternatives to Coke include local label Jolly Cola. But Aarup-Andersen said both Coke and Pepsi, which Carlsberg also bottles, sold in Denmark were produced at Danish breweries by Danish workers.

"So these are very much, from our perspective, Danish brands," he said, adding that Carlsberg was not for or against boycotts and respected people's decisions.

Carlsberg's overall soft drink portfolio in Denmark was up, and the hit to Coke was "not dramatic" in terms of overall volumes, Aarup-Andersen said.

The brewer warned on Tuesday that U.S. tariffs could affect both consumer spending and raw material costs going forward.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney in London and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Additional reporting by Jessica Di'Napoli in New York and Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Leslie Adler)

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