Jeera drink space hots up as Coca Cola strengthens play with RimZim

Soft drinks major Coca Cola’s India arm is strengthening its presence in the country’s ethnic flavoured beverages market with its RimZim brand.

 

The Atlanta-headquartered company’s bottlers in the northern region have already doubled production of the cumin-flavoured drink over the last few months. 

 

“We are scaling our RimZim masala jeera soda offering to meet the rising consumer demand for traditional Indian homemade beverages,” a leading bottler told Business Standard.

 

He added that RimZim's current production at his facilities had risen to nearly 4 million units a month, up 100 per cent from two years ago, adding that he is now touching over 30,000 retail points in the market for the brand.

 

“This reflects the brand’s strong momentum and the increasing consumer preference for regional flavours,” another bottler said.

 

Now visible in shelves across Delhi-NCR and other regions in Uttar Pradesh apart from Gujarat and Karnataka, RimZim is available in ₹10 packs. Bottlers are also exploring a variety of pack sizes and formats, which best suit diverse consumption occasions and channel requirements.

 

Relaunched in 2018, Coca Cola had acquired the cumin-flavoured Rimzim from Parle in the 1990s, but is only pressing the pedal on it now. The company did not respond to email queries.

 

Coca Cola rival, PepsiCo, too, is expected to foray into the segment with its Nimbooz brand, said senior industry executives. The company, however, did not respond to any email query sent by Business Standard as of Friday evening.

 

The cumin-flavoured beverages segment in India has been growing steadily, attracting other big fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) makers to establish their presence.

 

According to the Indian Beverages Association, the Indian non-alcoholic beverages segment is valued at about ₹67,000 crore and is expected to grow to ₹1.5 trillion by 2030.

 

Of this, the cumin-flavoured non-alcoholic beverage segment is valued at about ₹2,500 crore, said industry executives.

 

Last year, Dabur India extended its Hajmola brand to launch Hajmola Zeera. As consumers shifted from juices to carbonated beverages, the company decided to leverage the digestive brand with the launch of cumin-flavoured beverages, said analysts.

 

Extensions and variants now contribute more than 15 per cent to the Hajmola franchise, the company stated earlier this year.

 

Reliance Consumer Products, too, has two cumin-flavoured offerings under Sosyo – a brand in which it had acquired a controlling stake in the past. In the Andhra Pradesh market, the company launched Jeera Up under the Campa brand.

 

Punjab-based Archian Foods calls itself the category ‘OG’, having launched Lahori Zeera in 2017.

 

In May this year, the Chandigarh-based company secured ₹200 crore from Motilal Oswal Wealth in primary funding, catapulting its valuation to ₹2,800 crore.

 

Having clocked a revenue of ₹550 crore in FY25, it expects to reach ₹800 crore in FY26.

 

“We are happy to see so many brands come into the category. It is a validation of our thesis that people are looking for familiar flavours that they grew up with. These are tailwinds that support our growth in the Indian non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages space,” said Saurabh Munjal, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Archian Foods.

 

“Increased competition only helps us to improve our product and keeps all players on their toes – especially in an impulse buy category,” he added.