Want to have lion's share of the premium water segment: Bisleri Int'l CEO

We would like to hit the Rs 500 crore mark in the next three years, even to call it making an entry, said George

Beverages company Bisleri International is planning to double its sales from Rs 2,300 crore in FY23 in four years. Chief Executive Officer Angelo George speaks to Akshara Srivastava on how the company can do this -- gaining large chunks of the carbonated soft beverages and premium water markets, and its foray into international markets. Edited excerpts:

How have this year’s operations been affected by the summer season getting cut short by untimely rain?

A significant chunk of our carbonated soft drinks business happens during the peak summer months and the second summer. However, water has relatively low fluctuations because it is something you drink. However, a lot of out-of-home consumption is impacted by unseasonal rain.

There were some disturbances in distribution, particularly in Delhi. This year it was significantly bad for a couple of months when trucks couldn’t go into narrow lanes to deliver goods. So it’s not so much of a consumption challenge but more of a disruption and out-of-home consumption challenge. Barring those disturbances, I think the business has been good.

What about the carbonated soft drinks segment? How has that performed?

The Indian carbonated beverage category is something close to Rs 50,000 crore and we are at a few 100 crores. For now, our share is small. We would like to hit Rs 500 crore in three years even to call it making an entry. We have just got our act right in formulation and flavour.

We have a large market waiting for us and we have an inherent distribution muscle and a big footprint of manufacturing facilities across the country to bank on.

Do you plan to expand your portfolio with newer products like energy drinks and flavoured water?

The Bisleri brand has been our mainstay, which is meeting a significant chunk of our business. We are closely watching the market. So anything that is interesting and scalable in the beverages segment is of value to us. However, anything that is sub-scale may not be worth doing.

Then there are also a lot of other concerns in the segment like sugar, artificial taste, and the aftertaste of the formulation. It is important to remember that people drink water for hydration.

We have been trying to build a premium brand at the top end, which is mineral water called Vedica Himalayan, and we are going to expand on that.

How big is the Vedica brand?

We can’t compare it with the main Bisleri business. I would compare that to how my competition is doing. And I think we have arrived in the market.

We are trying to expand that brand and are investing quite a bit of money by associating with premium events like Lollapalooza, the Moto GP, and the GQ Best Dressed event.

We would like to get the lion’s share of that market, which is 60-65 per cent of it. Currently, we are a little more than half of where we want to be.

What are your plans for the company in the coming years?

We have planned to double our business. It’s a four-year journey and the first year is over.

How will you do this?

Water as a product is low-cost but involves high logistics. We are taking a model of localised manufacturing. We have about 130 factories and in one and a half years, we want to increase them by 25-30 units. However, this depends on water availability.

We are also trying to increase consumption in large cities, which we have identified as potential markets. We plan to get into areas that were weaker on account of manufacturing gaps, but we are plugging that hole.

Tamil Nadu is a big consumption market and has seen the largest amount of urbanisation in the past 10 years. That gives a company like Bisleri large potential to tap into. We had a manufacturing problem there earlier, but we have now gone back there with a vengeance. A plant in Kanyakumari was commissioned just at the end of last year and two new plants in the state are in the process of being commissioned.

The other market is Odisha, where we have set up our plant near Bhubaneswar.

You recently forayed into the international market by entering Dubai. How do you plan to expand abroad?

We have a deal with a manufacturing facility in Dubai some time ago and went live on September 7 with limited-edition bottles of Bisleri, for which we tied up with Shah Rukh Khan’s movie Jawan. It has been very well received.

Going as an Indian brand and hoping that Indians will buy Bisleri is not right thinking. There has to be some value edition. We hope to expand to all other West Asian countries shortly once the Dubai facility and the operations give us the reassurance that we are doing well.