India is a jewel at the moment for nutrition biz: Coca-Cola's global executive

"Maaza is one of our key brands. It will continue to be at the heart of our nutrition business in India. We also see a lot of opportunity with Minute Maid," said Sedef Salingan Sahin, President, Global Nutrition Category, The Coca-Cola Company. 

Sahin was in India recently to talk about the company's nutrition portfolio. Globally, the nutrition category includes juices -- Minute Maid is a global leader and exists in nearly 150 countries -- value-added dairy and plant-based beverages, which is the company's latest foray. "We are constantly looking for opportunities that will meet the needs of the consumers in the nourishing space. Lines are blurring. Anything that satisfies nourishment needs, we are open to it," she said. 
Sahin explained that on the nutrition side, their business model was different than their sparkling business. While under sparkling they had big global brands, under nutrition, besides big global brands they worked with a lot of local brands. "We have some big local brands on the sparkling side but that is more of an exception. For instance, we have Thums Up as one of our mega brands," she added.  

"India is a jewel at the moment. Not only for the nutrition business but for the total business as well. It has been growing very fast, expanding our consumer base and contributing to the growth of the global company. In nutrition, particularly it's important," said Sahin commenting that love for mango is on a whole different level for the Indian consumer.  

"Maaza is the fastest-growing brand right now, within our overall portfolio. It is a jewel in our portfolio," said Arnab Roy, Vice President and Head-Marketing, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia, adding that Maaza is the top brand this year in terms of its internal brand health score and brand equity score. 

According to him, Maaza has huge potential to grow. "We are adding more capacity in terms of the manufacturing line. We are investing more in marketing and that is only going to increase," he said. 

Maaza is Coca-Cola India's third-largest brand after Thums Up and Sprite. It is presently sold only in the domestic market, but Roy said that they are working to take the brand to neighbouring markets. 

"We are very clear that nutrition is going to be one of our biggest growth drivers for both volume and our weekly consumer base, which we are tracking," said Roy. "As we look at the opportunity in the next 5-10 years, this particular category will play a very important role." 

Roy said they were looking at increased investments in both Maaza and Minute Maid. "We have a big portfolio globally and the number of products that we can bring into India is huge. I think we are just starting right now." He said while Maaza will continue to be just mango, with Minute Maid, they will look at other fruits. "Pulpy orange was a start. The opportunity to expand into other fruits and combinations is there. 

You will see a lot of innovations under the Minute Maid brand come in this year itself." 

On value-added dairy as a category, Shahin said that it was different than the juice business. "It requires huge capabilities in terms of supply chain. We have a brand called Fairlife that is operating in US, Canada and China. It's an ultra-filtered milk that filters the lactose and puts more protein, so less sugar more protein." Indians, she said, loved milk and though there was a huge opportunity, they were working on offering the right product.  "Milk is important in India. We are figuring out how we can provide some of our products for the Indian consumer. We are still in the homework stage." 

Roy added: "It's a no-brainer that in the long run we have to play in this space. But it is critical to also ensure that you have a differentiated product proposition. With players like Amul and the strengths they have, it is not easy for private players to enter this market with a winning proposition. The homework is being done, we are working extensively with our R&D partners." 

Sahin said that the plant-based category was a new business for them which they acquired in Latin America and had introduced to UK, Ireland and Poland. They were not looking at promoting it in India, anytime in the near future.  

Globally Coca Cola has five categories - Coca-Cola trademark; flavoured sparkling beverages; nutrition; hydration, sports, tea & coffee and the emerging category.