Cola remained the top sub-category after yet another strong performance. Value growth of 4%, for a second year running, took total cola sales to £1.35bn – a 22% share of the take-home soft drinks market.

Cola seems to have benefited from tight economic conditions, as many shoppers switched their spending from higher priced smoothies and fruit juice. These switchers predominantly favoured low-cal variants.

Pepsi continued to grow sales faster than Coke, with 5% value growth taking sales to £271m. But Coke was not far behind, with sales up 4% to just over £16m. Pepsi Max was again the star performer, with sales value growing 9%.

Pure juice remained the No2 category by a large margin, with total sales of £1.16bn. But sales declined by 4% − equivalent to £41m − as consumers turned to less expensive alternatives. While most of the switchers traded down to juice drinks, many moved to entirely different sub-categories in search of value-for-money enjoyment – and cola was the main beneficiary. Not all juice brands were in the doldrums, though: Princes grew 47%, picking up an extra £6m of sales..

With a healthy 7% increase in sales to £567m, glucose/stimulant drinks was once again the top-performing sub-category. Although its growth was down on the 12% achieved in 2008, it remains the third largest sub-category with a growing share of the total soft drinks market.

The big stimulus was provided by Relentless and Monster, which together accounted for 58% of the growth. The key to stimulant drinks' remorseless rise is increased distribution, for both new and existing lines. Overall, distribution rose by 12%, with new brand Monster accounting for a quarter of this.

In 2009's price conscious environment, maintaining growth for this high-ticket subcategory was also a marketing challenge. One key to success was a 20% uplift in promotional support, raising the proportion of sales on promotion by a third to 42%. The other was a sharp rise in packs at sub-£2 price points. These drove two-thirds of the sub-category's 2009 growth and now account for 29% of sales.

Juice drinks sales returned to growth – up 3% to £501m – after declining by 1% in 2008. The sub-category benefited from pure juice shoppers trading down in search of taste and fruit content at a lower price.

Driving category growth within the top 10 brands was Rubicon, up a significant 54%, Oasis 6%, Capri Sun 11% and J2O 5%. Value conscious shoppers gave private label a 15% increase in sales.

A slightly better summer brought a ray of sunshine to squash sales, with value growth of 7% to £476m. This was a real improvement on the 2008 performance of 2% and injected an additional £30m into the sub-category.

The success of double-concentrate sales returned private label to value growth but complicated the volume story. On the face of it, sales volume dropped slightly – but "equivalised volume" (diluting double concentrate to the same strength as normal squash) shows that in reality volume was growing.

Market leader Robinsons had a good year, with value sales up 6% to £208m, representing a third of the sub-category's growth of around £12m.

Fruit flavoured carbonates had a strong year, returning to value growth of 4% to £452m after a 1% decline in 2008.

The top 10 grew significantly, with four in particular – 7UP, Tango, Schloer and Vimto – into double digits. Of these the stars were Tango at 18% and Vimto, up 27%. However, No1 brand Fanta bucked the trend, losing 4% sales. Lilt was also down 1%.

Water stemmed the decline of the last two years with value sales flat at £424m in 2009. The change in fortunes was largely down to increased promotional activity, which lifted supermarket sales by 3%. A 300% increase in distribution lifted sales of Nestle's relative newcomer Pure Life. Highland Spring and Buxton also performed well.

Dairy drinks doubled their growth to 4%, bringing sales for the year to £406m. This success was a combination of existing consumers buying more and others adding dairy drinks to their basket for the first time.

Top brand Actimel grew by 7% but the big success story came from the second and third placed brands. Frijj surged ahead by 17% to £44m, closely followed by Benecol, up 15% to £35m.

After three years of growth that pitched sports drinks into the second fastest-growing sub-category, 2009 was a different story. Sales were down 2% to £164m. This was due partly to the two-pronged effect of smaller brands being lost in distribution cuts and a decline in sales of Lucozade Sports and Hydroactive.

The two brands driving sales growth were Gatorade, up 40% to £2m, and relative newcomer Euroshopper Isotonic. Its low price attracted value-conscious consumers, resulting in a significant sales increase to £2m.

With sales up 6% this sub-category experienced one of the fastest growth rates in the soft drinks market, with sales of £158m taking it close to overtaking sports drinks.

Irn Bru remained the dominant brand with sales of £95.3m although sales growth slowed versus last year to 4%. In a sub-category characterised by distinctive products with loyal buyers, the brands driving growth in 2009 were D&G Jamaica (up 13%) and Barrs’ originals range of cream soda, dandelion and burdock, ginger beer and shandy (up 6%).

Sales of water plus increased by 4% to £157m – the first year of growth since 2006. Now running neck and neck with non-fruit carbs, water plus grew sales volume (up 9%) considerably faster than value – indicating some flexing of prices to attract value-conscious consumers. While flavoured water still accounts for some 96% of water plus, the big success story was water with functional ingredients - turning the previous year's 42% decline into a 72% increase. The heroes in this turnaround story were relative newcomer Glaceau Vitamin Water, with sales up by nearly £5m and V Water, up 143% to just over £1m.

Lemonade saw value growth of 4% to £148m. This was helped by an increased demand for the multi-pack format and retailers increasing distribution of such lines.

R Whites was the big winner with sales up 17% in value terms, with Schweppes attaining a respectable 5% growth – between them driving 83% of the sub-category's growth.

The reversal of fortunes continued for smoothies as recession-hit shoppers switched to lower price pure juice and other sub-categories. Sales dropped by 27% to £127m, outpacing the previous year's 20% fall.

Tonic water and soda water continued to achieve value growth, with sales increases of 5% a piece. Overall value sales in the sub-category grew on a par with 2008 at 3% to £115m.

This sub-category continued its downward trend, with sales declining 8% to £1m. Kenco was the main casualty, with sales down 83%.