Coca Cola India said on Wednesday it is exploring the option of sourcing orange pulp for its recently launched juice drink Minute Maid Pulpy Orange from India itself.
"We are quite keen on sourcing the orange pulp and orange concentrate from India itself for our domestic market," Coca Cola India Vice President (Franchise Operations) Vikas Chawla told reporters in Ludhiana.
At present, the company is importing orange pulp and orange juice concentrate from Florida and Brazil. It sources mangoes for its Maaza brand from India.
Coca Cola India, which has 39 per cent market share in the domestic juice drink segment, is also mulling a bottling plant in the northern region
for the juice brand. "... we are looking at setting up a bottling plant for orange juice drink in the north which will be decided soon," Chawla said.
The company is currently getting the Minute Maid brand bottled in China for catering to its customers of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. It has a bottling plant at Chitoor in Andhra Pradesh, which caters to customers of southern India.
"Within four months of launch, we have sold four million units of our juice brand in south," he said. The company plans to make available the drink at 20,000 retail outlets in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh within the next two months, Coca Cola India Director (New Product Commercialisation) Davinder Singh said.