The Hindu Business Line : Carlsberg looks to strengthen presence in Indian market

Pune, July 2 Two more greenfield facilities and presence in the North, West and East markets are what the Danish beer Carlsberg has chalked out for itself for this calendar year.

Talking to Business Line, Mr Pradeep Gidwani, Managing Director, Carlsberg and South Asia Breweries, said it would also be starting its commercial production from its two new greenfield facilities, Aurangabad (Maharashtra) and Kolkata.

The company already has production facilities in Alwar (Rajasthan) and Himachal Pradesh. The Aurangabad facility would be operational in the next 15 days and would have a capacity of six lakh hectolitres a year.

The investment that is going into this facility is Rs 80 crore. He noted that the Kolkata facility would also begin its commercial production in about a month’s time with a capacity of 1,20,000 hectolitres.

The total annual production from these four facilities would be 1.5 million hectolitres, he said.

He noted that a total investment of Rs 220 crore is being utilised for all the four facilities.

He said the Aurangabad facility would cater to the markets of Maharashtra, Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Alwar and Himachal for the northern markets and Kolkata for the eastern region.

He said it would be concentrating its presence in these three markets and the southern market would be tapped into at the fag end of the year.

Indian market

Commenting on the beer market in the country, Mr Gidwani said compared with the global standards, the Indian beer market was very small with an annual per capita consumption of around one litre. He noted that the total beer market is around 12 million hectolitres and is growing at15-17 per cent a year.

The reasons he pointed out were that a good chunk of people fell in the 25-plus age category, the changing social lifestyle and the fact that beer was preferred as India was a hot country almost throughout the year.

Mr Gidwani said that the past one month has seen many of the markets being catered to by Carlsberg. This included markets such as Chandigarh, Jaipur, across Uttar Pradesh, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Goa, Guwahati, Shillong etc. The agenda now was to complete the gaps across Maharashtra, eastern India and Rajasthan. It would be rolled out into the interiors of locations in the North, West and East, he added.

Carlsberg operates in India through South Asia Breweries, in which it directly holds 45 per cent stake, while Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries (IFU) holds 10 per cent and the remaining 45 per cent by a group of investors led by Carlsberg’s partner in Sri Lanka, The Lion Brewery Ceylon.

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