GUWAHATI: Leading beverage company, Coca-Cola India is focused on “progressive” Northeast as a market for specific offerings, but admits there is significant “headroom” for the company to grow across the region.
“Consumers in the Northeast are young, evolved and progressive in terms of trying out newer, global products, especially specific products. So there is tremendous potential to tap and headroom to grow in the area of manufacturing, distribution and marketing in the region,” Ishteyaque Amjad, vice president, public affairs, communication and sustainability, Coca Cola India and South West Asia, said here on Wednesday.
Coca Cola extended its enhanced hydration portfolio to the Northeast on Wednesday with the launch of Aquarius Glucocharge, which is packed with glucose, essential minerals (potassium, sodium, calcium) and fruit juice and developed exclusively for Indian consumers who toil in the heat and need instant rehydration to overcome exhaustion.
The non-carbonated, low-sugar beverage is available in lemon, apple and orange variants, with an affordable value offering of Rs 10 for a 200 ml Tetra Pak. “The product is available across Assam and will be available across the Northeast in a few days,” Amjad said.
Currently, a mega bottling plant of the company in Siliguri (North Bengal) is catering to distribution in the Northeast.
Asked whether the company has any plans to open a bottling plant in Northeast, he said, “We used to have an old plant in Jorhat. But with the idea of the incubation model in place, whereby new products are distributed from a mega plant directly to super stockists and sub distributers in the region, the company does not have such a plan as of now. We are moving over from old plants to mega plants, and the Northeast is currently covered by the Siliguri plant.”
“But of course, we can have a co-packer, which manufactures special offerings such as enhanced hydration, in the Northeast,” he said.
The company official said that with an outdoor society in the Northeast, the hydration product would do well in the region, where, barring the northern parts, the rest have more or less a warm climate for about eight-nine months.