Coca-Cola Bottler SLMG Beverages To Spend Rs 1,700 Crore On Two Uttar Pradesh Units

The bottler that caters to over 24 crore people across U.P. and Uttarakhand also expects to have a turnover of Rs 10,000 crore by FY25.

The company has seven manufacturing plants across U.P. including at Chhata near Mathura, Lucknow, Barabanki, Unnao, Bareilly, Ayodhya and Amethi.

"We plan to add one plant in Bijnor and one later in north-eastern part of the state. This would entail an investment of Rs 1,700 crore," Paritosh Ladhani, joint managing director of SLMG Beverages, told BQ Prime in an interview.

The company that produces over 28,000 bottles per minute of all brands of Coca Cola—including Coke, Maaza, Limca, Fanta, Thums Up and Kinley—had sales of Rs 4,600 crore in FY23, and is likely to touch Rs 7,500 crore by end of this fiscal, Paritosh said.

"Given the kind of growth in the FMCG market and demand for our beverages across brands, we aim to reach Rs 10,000 crore in FY25," he said.

SLMG Group, at present, contributes around 18% to Coca Cola's India revenue and has a network of 1,700 distributors and 1,300 wholesalers. That allows them to cater to 24 crore people, through 9,00,000 outlets in U.P. and Uttaranchal.

The company measures its growth through per capita consumption of Coca Cola products. At present, U.P. has a per capita consumption of around 20-22 products, as against the per capita consumption of 27 products for India. That gives enough opportunity of growing exponentially in U.P. to India levels, said Siddharth Ladhani, director, SLMG Beverages.

"If we compare that with USA their per capita consumption is 400 products, so that means a huge potential of growth in India," Siddharth said.

The growth will also be aided by participation of rural India, where 18-20 hours of electricity allows longer cooling hours for chilling machines, he said.

To Spend Rs 1,000 Crore On EV, Hospitality Business

As part of the green initiative, SLMG Beverages has converted 35% of their secondary distribution vehicles to electric vehicles. Their target is to reach 50% by the end of FY24.

Looking at the opportunity in the EV segment, Ladhani Group has also initiated talks with auto companies for a joint venture to become an original equipment manufacturer for electric vehicles.

The group is also expanding in the hospitality vertical in UP and Uttarakhand. Currently, they have hotels in Agra and Lucknow. They own the Taj Hotel in Agra and the Hilton and Golden Tulip in Lucknow, with a room inventory of 500.

"We plan to increase the footprint in the hospitality trade in UP by tripling our room inventories to 1,500 in the next four years," Paritosh Ladhani said.

"The plan is to invest Rs 1000 crore in another two hotels in Lucknow and one each in Ayodhya, Agra and Haridwar," Ladhani said.

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