Soft drink sale plummets post students’ stir

Senior executive of one of the companies said that they have a 54 per cent share in the aerated drinks sector in Coimbatore. “Across the range of soft drinks and packaged drinking water, we sell 2,000 cases (24 bottles per case) a day. It has even touched 6,000 cases during the summer. This has dropped to less than 500 now,” he said and added that 70 per cent of it is water bottles and soda. A private arts and science college at Kovaipudur had also sent a circular to students that soft drinks of foreign companies would not be sold in the college canteen. 

‘We are pleased about your awareness. Soft drinks of foreign origin will not be served from now on. Instead we will be serving fresh juice,’ the circular from the principal stated. While this college has come out with an announcement, close to a dozen colleges in the city have asked the sales executives of these two leading international companies not to approach them for the time being, due to resistance from students. 

“Colleges used to be the launching pad for new soft drinks. When students like it, they demand for the product in shops and that is when the demand for such products increased in commercial establishments. With students boycotting aerated drinks the number of cases supplied to institutions has dropped by 80 per cent,” another executive said. 

The number of cases sold to bars has also dropped by 50 per cent as almost all the student and other young customers have started demanding water. While sale of the dark coloured trademark soft drinks has dropped close to zero, it was not the same for their other products such as mango flavoured drinks, soda and bottled drinking water.

Despite youth boycotting soft drinks of leading international players, the companies are confident that their sale will be back to normal within a month.

“This is not going to affect us in the long run. Because there have been instances of traders’ bodies saying that their members will not sell the chemical substitute for cow dung and tobacco products. But those products are still on sale,” a sales executive said. On the other hand he added that there is no substitute for the advantages offered by them. Stating that the local competitors who have a mere 10 per cent market share would not be able to increase their production capacity and network, they also said the only readily available natural drink is tender coconut water. “But, it is voluminous and will occupy a lot of space unlike our bottles that can be stocked in a small area,” another executive said. The other advantage they claimed is ready availability of the chilled soft drinks at a function. “It will not be possible to serve fresh juice to hundreds of students in a 10-minute break they have between sessions. They should have the required infrastructure such as adequate space and multiple juice makers and manpower as well to make ‘fresh’ juice in the short time,” he added.