Coca-Cola Co. is planning to procure more fruits from India in the coming years to supply its global requirements.
The company has created a new position to focus on fruit producers. Asim Parekh, who was the vice president (strategy and planning), will become the vice president (fruit circular economy) for Coca-Cola’s India and South West Asia business unit, with immediate effect.
With the new initiative – which Coca-Cola calls the ‘Circular Economy’ – the American soft drinks maker will be involved in the entire sourcing supply chain of fruits. “We will be making interventions across the value chain starting from the farm-gate,” Coca-Cola said in a statement.
At present, Coca-Cola procures more than 2 lakh tonnes of fruit from Indian farmers every year. Just for Maaza, its mango-based beverage, Coca-Cola sources about 70,000 tonnes of mangoes from about 50,000 farmers. With the target to double production, Coca-Cola will source about 14,000 tonnes of mangoes from 100,000 farmers. However, the company does not source mangoes directly from the farmers. It has a few vendors who also supply to Coca-Cola units in other countries. Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd, one of its vendors, supplies about 56-60% of mango pulp that Coca-Cola India needs for producing Maaza.
The company which announced its plans to invest $5 billion by 2020 for capacity enhancement and market development in 2010, has been working on mixing more fruit content in some of its carbonated beverages after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in September 2014, urged multinational cola makers to add fruit content in aerated beverages in a bid to boost the fruit sales of Indian farmers.
