Sprint set to sizzle again

Sabols Foods to foray into soft drinks, ready-to-eat foods market.

Sprint, a clear soda that faded away with the advent of multinational beverage brands such as Sprite and 7Up, is set to sizzle again.

Coimbatore-based packaged drinking water manufacturer, Sabols Foods India Private Limited, has entered into an exclusive agreement with Venkateswara Essence and Chemicals Limited, a Bangalore-based company which owns the Sprint brand, for its relaunch.

Sprint, the lemon-flavoured aerated drink that comes in a green transparent bottle, is currently available only in the Kerala market. The fizzy brand went off the shelves in the Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry markets around 11 years ago.

"Under the tie up, we will procure the Sprint concentrate syrup from the Bangalore company for bottling it at our plants, and market it through our distribution channels across the three southern states. We plan to launch the brand by the end of May this year," Senthil KM, chairman of Sabols Foods, told Business Standard.

Meanwhile, the almost a decade-old-company, which commands a 25 per cent market share in the Tamil Nadu packaged drinking water market, is gearing up to launch a couple of more natural fruit, carbonated and energy drinks, besides introducing ready-to-eat products like noodles, biscuits, toffees and ice-creams by this year end. The company is set to launch Mango Magic, a natural mango drink on April 21, which would mark its foray into the FMCG products market.

"We have already roped in a consultant for identifying international energy drink brands, and are weighing various options including forming joint ventures with companies abroad to launch the energy drink in India," Senthil said, adding the company would invest close to Rs 25 crore in its FMCG venture, which would be raised either through debt or FII placements.

Senthil was in Hyderabad on Tuesday to announce the company's foray into Andhra Pradesh, the second largest packaged drinking water consuming market in the country, next to Tamil Nadu.

In an effort to capitalise on the significant opportunities that the Rs 2,000-crore organised Indian packaged drinking water market offers, Sabols is planning to set up three manufacturing plants in Andhra Pradesh via the franchisee mode in the next six months.

The company, at present, has eight plants at Coimbatore, Bangalore, Chennai, Madurai, Trichy, Dharmapuri and Hubli.

Sabols clocked revenues of Rs 12 crore last financial year and expects to close the 2008-09 fiscal with Rs 35 crore. "Fuelled by the company's expansion and FMCG plans, we expect our revenues to triple next fiscal," Senthil said.