The bottlers of Coca Cola, Century Bottling Company,
recently released a new product onto the market – milk!
Yes. You read right! Their new brand of beverage going under
the brand name Climb Up is bottled flavoured milk -- Vanilla, Mango, Strawberry
and Chocolate flavours.
That would be as interesting as it got, were not for the
fact that the new product is drawing largely from local producers and
suppliers.
For the second half of this year, the beverages company plans
to consume 13.5 tonnes of powdered milk and 18 tonnes of sugar, with a commensurate
amount of labelling, packaging and plastic bottling all provided by local
suppliers.
The local producers and suppliers now being allowed a look
in on the multinationals marketing and distribution network, it is safe to
assume will cause dramatic changes in those industries.
Take milk.
"It takes 8.5 liters of milk to get a kilogram of powdered milk. So Century Bottlers current powdered milk commitment will account for about 114,750 liters of fresh milk. While this demand doesn’t dent Uganda’s current annual 2.5 billion liter production, there is cause for optimism looking down the line...
There are few other companies in Uganda that can stand toe
to toe with the Coca Cola makers marketing reach and experience.
One can expect that with the company’s marketing and
distribution network being brought to bear on their latest offering, their
demand for milk will grow exponentially.
The latest news from the Dairy Development Authority (DDA)
is that thanks to our increased exports of milk to our eastern neighbour Kenya
we have reversed the historical trade imbalance between our two countries. And
as if that is not enough we have just overtaken South Africa as the continent’s
largest exporter of dairy products.
Industry players say there is still a lot of potential for
milk production in western, eastern and northern Uganda and it is reasonable to
think that Century Bottling will play an instrumental role in this endeavour.
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