Sabol going to launch fruit drinks
K.M. Senthil, Chairman and Managing Director, Sabol Associates, Coimbatore.Sabol Associatess, the Coimbatore-based packaged drinking water manufacturer, plans to launch packed fruit drinks and carbonated drinks shortly.Its chairman and managing director K.M. Senthil told The Hindu that the company was investing Rs. 15 crore to Rs. 20 crore initially to establish production facilities for these products in Chennai. It would come out with one flavour of fruit drink and one flavour of carbonated drink next month, first for the Chennai market.“We plan to sell about 10 lakh litres of fruit drink in the first year, primarily in the South market,” he said. These would come in pet bottles.Sabol entered the packaged drinking water market seven years ago and planned to cover the entire South Indian market by the end of 2008. Currently, Sabol packaged drinking water was available in Tamil Nadu and part of Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. “We are expanding our product range in drinking water segment too,” he said.
Putting forth his reasons to venture into food products, he said consumers were moving towards ready-to-eat products and the Indian market had a huge scope for these.Apart from fruit drink and carbonated drink, the company planned to include noodles and biscuits in its product basket shortly. With an annual turnover of Rs. 10 crore to Rs. 12 crore now, it hoped to see it grow three times by the end of 2008-2009.
