Jaipuria taking over Pepsi bottling from Timblos
31 May 2000 09:36 IST With three-month long deliberations bearing fruits, the House of Timblos has now decided to sell its bottling plants and marketing operations of Pepsi in entire Goa and 10 neighbouring districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka to Delhi-based Jaipuria Brothers.
The deal has reportedly been struck for above Rs 60 crore, while the agreement between 33-year old Goan bottler and the young North Indian bottler would be signed any moment, disclose close sources to the Jaipuria Brothers.
Though actual shifting over would take place only in the second week of June, key persons of Jaipurias – a major Pepsi franchise operator running around 11 bottling plants in India and Nepal – are already in the market here for the last one month.
Timblos, who owns a leading mining firm Fomento and Goa's famous five star resort Cidade de Goa at Dona Paula near Panaji, operates Goa Bottling Company with an annual production capacity of 3.5 million cases in Goa and Nectar Beverages Ltd in Dharwar, bottling three million cases annually.
Besides Goa, which is having second highest per capita soft drink consumption rate in India, the Timblos were also marketing the 'blue' products in Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra and Dharwar, Chitradurg, Davengiri, Bijapur, Hospet, Bellary and North Canara districts of Karnataka.
As Jaipuria Brothers are having vast experience in marketing Pepsi products in Kathmandu as well as in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, the PepsiCo learnt to have now allotted them two more districts of Karnataka – Hubli and Gadag, while blessing the shift over to a new franchise operator.
Incidentally, the Timblos had broken away its franchise deal with Coca Cola three years ago, countering the attempt made by the Atlanta-based multinational to take over their bottling plant. Prior to that, the GBC in Goa has been bottling Parle products since its inception.
Using aggressive marketing methods, the Timblos managed to snatch away 22 per cent of the Coke share, which still stands at 56 per cent against 44 per cent of Pepsi in these areas. Suryakant and Ravi –the Jaipuria brothers – have now reportedly assured the PepsiCo to overscore the red rival, which has now set up a new plant here in March last year.
At a distributors' meet at Hotel Cidade Goa recently, disclose the sources, the Jaipurias have also spelt out its expansion plans by setting up two plants in Goa and Karnataka, producing PET bottles, which have been otherwise imported till date.
The North Indian bottlers also learnt to have decided to capture the untapped market in the tourist state as well as coastal belt of Maharashtra and Karnataka by using unique marketing methods.
Prashant Timblo, the CMD, however could not be contacted to get his comments, in spite of frantic efforts. He had denied the report, after GoaNews in January had published the news of possible shift-over.
