Coca Cola To Enter Diary Industry With Launch Of Vio In India

BENGALURU: Coco Cola plans to enter the diary market of India and serve a strong competition for Amul, Britannia and Nestle. The brand name of this diary section will be Vio in India. This will be a global launch and dairy products will be devoid of any carbonation. An official from the cola company said, "This will be an entirely India innovation." 

Another official of the Coca Cola Company, very closely associated with the development of this new section reveals, "The rollout could happen as early as January next year or by next quarter at the most. The front-end and back-end are being fine-tuned." 

At the first phase, the plan is to bring out bottled Vio in different flavors across India.

In U.S., the same is a, skimmed milk-based beverage but is carbonated. The present available flavors of Vio includes citrus, peach and berry and is given across as a drink free of preservatives and composed of vitamin C.

Vio is not the first milk based product from the Cola Company. The same had launched Fairlife in the U.S. in late 2014. It is prepared through proprietary milk filtering process and is a joint venture between dairy farmers and the Minute Maid makers. However the product could not trap much clientele base.  

One of the officials named dairy giant Schreiber Dynamix Dairies with whom the company contracts for milk supply.

A Coca Cola spokesperson also said, "We already have an offering in the dairy space — Maaza Milky Delite — which has a presence in select markets. Vio is a global brand and is, therefore, an option available to us. It is too early for us to comment on a possible launch of this brand in India." This product called Maaza Milk Delite is composed of milk and mango solids.

Group president, food and FMCG, of Future Group, Devendra Chawla said, "It is worth the challenge because if it works, it can be a game changer for Coca-Cola. Unlike colas, dairy is a traditional, culturally deep-rooted and high-involvement daily consumption category and could bring Coca-Cola into the daily grocery consumption basket, bringing its brands very close to the Indian consumer." 

Chawla further added, "It could be a DNA challenge for a soft drink company to do dairy, which is not its core business. It's similar to a non-ayurvedic company getting into Ayurveda," Chawla said. 
 

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