‘What we’ve done in 10 years, we’ ll do again in 3 years’

On Monday, beverage major Coca-Cola India said it would contribute $1.7 billion (R11,000 crore) with its bottling partners, fruit suppliers and processors in Maharashtra to create an entire eco-system to procure and process the pulp of the mosambi fruit. This is the second such initiative by Coca-Cola in Maharashtra, after its Project Unnati for procurement and processing of orange pulp. T KRISHNAKUMAR, president, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia since last month, spoke to Viveat Susan Pinto on these and other plans. Edited excerpts:

Why an investment of $1.7 billion in creating this farm-to-table system in Maharashtra? Is Coca-Cola signal ling it will move away from fizzy drinks in the future?

Our interest in mo sam bi procurement and processing was triggered by the way we' d moved on ProjectUn nat ii nt he past decade. Ten years ago, Ma aza, our man go juice drink, was a small brand. Today, it is the country’ s largest man go juice drink, led in part by steady supply of man goes from ProjectUn na ti, which is in partnership with Jain Irrigation( J N) in K ar nat aka, And hr a Pradesh and Tamil Na du. The work we’ d done in cultivation and ensuring steady supply of the man go for processing gave us the confidence. We began speaking to the Maharashtra government on other fruit and that is how we started work on cultivation and processing of orange pulp under ProjectUn na ti last year, which is also in partnership with J N.

The mosambi initiative will be the second one in the state. This September, a laboratory, demonstration farm and processing unit will be set upon 100 acres by JN. We’ll setup a manufacturingand filling u nita tLoteP ar sh u ram( Rat na giri district ).

Will the thrust on non-fizzy drinks grow, inline with global directives?

What you will increasingly see us do is to come out with nosugar and low-sugar variants of our carbonated drinks. We have done that with Coke and Sprite. It will be extended to other brands in our sparkling (carbonated) portfolio.

I don’ t think our attention will move away from fizzy drinks because the scope for growth does exist in the category. We intend to keep our ears firmly to the ground and understand the changing consumer trends. On our still( non-carbonated) portfolio, we will make steady investments, as we now are with our existing brands such as Ma aza or Minute Maid. We’ ve just launched amos am bi variant under Minute Maid, sourcing the fruit from Jalna in Maharashtra. Similarly, oranges sourced from Maharashtra are used in a small way in our sparkling drink, Fanta. Last year, we piloted Fanta Green Mango, our juice-with-fizz innovation, which will be scaled up. There’ll be a lot of such innovations as we go forward. Additionally, introduction of global brands will continue.

What are you precisely doing to bring Coca-Cola India on the growth path, after struggling for a few quarters?

Till now, we’ ve done things pretty well. All we’ re going to do now is to be quickly expanding our choice to the consumer, both in breadth and depth. We’ d be doing it in a more accelerated manner than in the past. We’ ve several things in the pipeline and I think we can accelerate the pace of execution. So, what we did in the past 10 years in terms of expansion, we will try and do an equivalent( amount) or more in the next three years.