It has chosen the Rs 5 price point to make a comeback to the space dominated by home-grown brand Rasna. Coca-Cola will hitch a ride on its orange soft drink brand Fanta for its return. However, the company plans to test market the product before going pan-India.
India is the only market where the world’s largest beverage maker is getting into the concentrate category with Fanta and only the fifth market where a powdered offering of any of its brands would be made available.
Confectionery maker Cadbury India, part of Kraft Foods, has also recently upped its ante with its Tang brand in this market. The orange flavour is also the largest segment in the powdered soft drink industry where Rasna controls over 90% of the market.
Talking to Times of India, Srinivas Murthy, director marketing (flavours) for Coca-Cola India, said: “We are targeting the consumer segment at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid as we will introduce the product at an attractive price point. Even the retail touch points chosen for the product will be the traditional FMCG outlets where you do not need refrigeration to store the product the way it is for bottled soft-drinks.”
Coca-Cola introduced the Sunfill brand in 2001 to take on Rasna but withdrew the product after four years. The company said it was ahead of the time then. It now intends to use the learnings of its past venture for the launch of Fanta Fun Times.
“The market wasn’t ready then and the segment was yet to evolve to the level where a ready to drink as well as powdered offering for the same brand could exist,” Murthy said. The company may look at launching more brands in this category if the script goes according to plan.
Fanta has 9% share of the Rs 9,000 crore soft drink market and stacks up below Thums Up, Coca-Cola and Sprite in the Cola-Cola portfolio. Along with rival PepsiCo’s Mirinda, the orange flavoured drinks have a combined market share of 15%.
Coca-Cola is globally present in the powdered beverage market with brands such as Eight O’ Clock juice and juice drink in Philippines and the Sunfill brand in Hong Kong, Kenya and the US.
Source: The Economic Times
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