Sandesh Prabhudesai
19 June 2000
The deal has finally been struck for around $ 15 million. Timblos have given up its 33-year old bottling business. The Delhi-based Jaipuria Brothers have bought over franchise rights of bottling as well as marketing Pepsi in Goa and Karnataka.
"We have bought operations in both the state in totality from 14 June.", confirmed Madhu Parekh, the newly taken over director of Goa Bottling Company, situated in Margao. The same arrangement with the PepsiCo would continue, he added.
It would however be a joint venture between Jaipuria brothers – Suryakant and Ravi – with the former having control over Karnataka operations and the latter in Goa. The Timblos also owned another plant Nectar Beverages in Dharwar in Karnataka.
According to Parekh, the marketing in Goa, three districts of Maharashtra and nine districts in Karnataka would be temporarily handled by Sellwell Food & Beverages Marketing Co, a separate marketing firm which handles marketing operations of Jaipurias of some of their existing 17 plants all over India.
Under Timblos, Goa and Maharashtra was earlier marketed by Beverage Ventures Pvt Ltd while Trupti Marketing was looking after Karnataka marketing. "We may ourselves market the products in future", says Parekh.
The deal reportedly also includes taking over marketing staff of both the companies owned by the Timblos, though it is still not clear whether Jaipurias would take over the entire staff. "We will do the screening and recruit them afresh", informs Parekh.
In spite of Timblos suddenly giving up Coke production in 1997 to tie up with PepsiCo thereby leaving the Atlanta-based multinational high and dry without even a bottling plant in the area, the Coke still holds around 60 per cent share. "We are still close to 40 per cent", says Parekh, who is confident of overscoring their red rivals.
The GBC in Goa, having annual production capacity of 3.5 million cases, would market its 'blue' products in Goa as well as Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra. They now also plan to capture the untapped market in the tourist state, which records second highest per capita consumption in the country.
Similarly, the NBL in Dharwar, with the capacity of three million cases, would supply the soft drinks products for Dharwar, Hubli, Chitradurg, Davengiri, Bijapur, Hospet, Bellary, Gadag and North Canara. Parekh also confirms that the expansion plan includes production of PET bottles in both the plants.
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