Ravi Jaipuria to buy Pepsi's Bengal bottling plant

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Bottling, restaurant and foods chain entrepreneur Ravi Jaipuria is expected to buy PepsiCo India’s West Bengal bottling plant in Sonarpur in a deal that will make him the global beverage-to-foods giant’s single largest bottler in India.

With this deal, Jaipuria’s RJ Corp will own over 10 bottling plants, controlling 25 per cent of PepsiCo’s bottling capacity in the country (earlier he was PepsiCo’s largest bottler together with his family).

RJ Corp’s bottling plants include those in the north-east, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Goa. Jaipuria also has plants for PepsiCo in Nepal, Angola, Uganda and Mozambique.

Confirming the development, Ravi Jaipuria told Business Standard the deal would be complete in a day or two. “The West Bengal operations will contribute 10 to 15 per cent to our turnover,” he said.

A PepsiCo India spokesperson said: “This is our proposed plan and currently it is work-in-progress.”

The Jaipuria family (including his brothers) controls over 50 per cent of PepsiCo India’s bottling operations, with almost 20 bottling plants together.

West Bengal is among India’s top seven markets and accounts for 6-8 per cent of beverage sales. PepsiCo’s competitors Coca Cola operate in the state through a franchisee bottler.

PepsiCo has over 43 bottling plants, of which 15 are company-owned and 28 are owned by franchisee bottlers. In contrast, Coca Cola has 60 bottling plants, 25 owned by the company and an equal number of franchisee bottlers and 10 “co-packers” (who bottle non-exclusively for the company).

RJ Corp operates in businesses ranging from restaurants, ice cream, real estate, liquor and education, among others. Jaipuria controls franchisees for the premium coffee chain Costa Coffee, and Pizza Hut and KFC through his company Devyani International. In the north, this company sells the Cream Bell ice cream brand.

Jaipuria has also signed a joint venture with Belgian beer maker InBev and has already launched some of its brands like Becks and Stella Artois in India. Plus, RJ Corp has a tie-up with Disney to sell “Disney Artist” merchandise in the country.