Bisleri Pop: Chauhan wants new drink in a new bottle

Thums Up may be on its way to overseas markets and become a $1-billion brand, but its erstwhile owner, Ramesh Chauhan, is yet to ‘taste the thunder’ of his latest carbonated offering, Bisleri Pop.

Almost two years after re-entering the carbonated segment with four variants under Bisleri Pop, the firm has withdrawn the brand. But there are plans to reformulate it and bring it back in the future.

“The fault lies with our people and distributors since they always wanted to promote Bisleri water instead of the carbonated beverages. We are now planning to alter the offering and re-looking at the formulation, which should also include the mandatory 10 per cent juice as stipulated by the government,” said Ramesh Chauhan, Chairman, Bisleri International.

Bisleri Pop was launched in early 2016, almost 22 years after Chauhan sold Thums Up and some of his other brands to Coca-Cola.

The drink had four variants — Limonata, Fonzo, Pina Colada and Spyci. Some of these were exact replicas of Coca-Cola’s offerings such as Limca and Coke, without differentiation.

“It does not make sense to go back to the same category as there cannot be similar passion. In most of the cases, promoters selling the brands should try their hand at newer categories,” observed Jagdeep Kapoor, Managing Director, Samsika Marketing Consultants.

In fact, during the launch of the Pop range of drinks, Chauhan had made it clear that he was willing to compete with the MNCs in the carbonated categories once again.

“We are now on the same boat with Coca-Cola and will do whatever it takes to increase distribution and capacity to compete against them. Our flavours are unique and though we may not have enough production capacity, we plan to quickly enhance it along with 30-40 per cent increase in distribution,” he had said in 2016.

Being the owner of the largest packaged water brand in the country with, Chauhan had thought he could use its popularity and distribution for making a re-entry into the carbonated segment.

Even his brother Prakash Chauhan, the then Chairman and MD of Parle Agro, had re-entered the carbonated category in 2013 with Cafe Cuba with the hope of making a new category of coffee-based carbonated beverage.

But volumes have been lacklustre with Cafe Cuba being restricted to cans and available mostly in the institutional segment.

The Chauhan brothers had sold their popular beverage brands Thums Up, Maaza and Citra to Coca-Cola in 1993 for reportedly $40 million.

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