Pepsi bottler targets street carts

Suntory PepsiCo Beverage Thailand, the bottler of Pepsi, Mirinda and 7-Up, has set an ambitious plan to tap into every street food shop in Thailand to boost sales of its carbonated drink.

Ashish Joshi, the company’s chief executive officer, said his company will keep partnering with more and more eateries because it has direct access to the customer base.

“The eateries business is likely to grow in every economic situation. Moreover, the partnership with street food shops also benefits our brand visibility. More people can see and try our products,” he said.

The street food channel is estimated to contribute around 30% of carbonated drink sales in Thailand.

Pepsi Suntory been focused on the street food channel since last year after teaming up with Chaixi Bameekiao, a renowned street noodle chain, which operates more than 4,500 outlets across the country.

“As far as I understand, there’s a very good synergy between food and beverages because beverages are consumed everywhere. Anywhere people go, they find that beverages are consumed, especially in the local street food context. We hope our beverages are very well paired with street food, including the most premium ones as well. We attempt to make sure that people can have access to our products anywhere. We try to balance across both big shops as well as street shops,’’ said Mr Joshi, who was appointed in June last year to his position.

There are around 300,000 street food vendors in Thailand. Pepsi covers about 70,000-80,000 street food outlets all over the country.

Mr Joshi, who worked for three years at Colgate-Palmolive, said he is very keen to come back to Thailand, being one of the few countries that has been well-managed during the pandemic.

“I feel very safe living in Thailand. I joined the beverage industry because Thailand’s beverage industry has developed very well with value of around 200 billion baht per year. Thailand is one of the highest per-capita beverage consumption markets in the world,’’ he said.

“The key focus is driving sales during this crisis to make sure we stay close to our partners and increase our distribution, visibility and partnerships,’’ he said.

As the carbonated drink business makes up for only 25% of the total beverage industry, the company is looking at new beverage categories, particularly in healthy beverages.

In the long term, he said the company will gear toward zero-sugar and low-sugar beverages because the government and manufacturers everywhere are driving towards the mutual goal of zero sugar.

“I was very surprised when I first talked to Thai consumers. They said they wanted a healthier product, yet the carbonated drink segment grew the fastest in 2020,” he said.