Cola rumpus fuels consumption of non-carbonated drinks

Sales of non-carbonated cold drinks, such as sherbats, lassi and fruit beverages, have shot up in Ahmedabad over the past five days at the cost of carbonated colas.

Cold-drink shop owners in the city said, following the Centre for Science and Environment report on traces of pesticides in colas, a large number of consumers have shifted to non-carbonated drinks.

Officials at SGAB, franchisee of Parle Agro in Gujarat, said the quantum of sales of non-carbonated drinks have risen following the report. They, however, added that it was too early to gauge the exact rise.

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 "Retail-store owners are asking our representatives to provide more non-carbonated drinks," said Aveek Jena, a Parle International executive posted at Ahmedabad. SGAB distributes non-carbonated drinks, such as the Fruity range (mango, orange, appy, green mango flavours) and Njoy.

"The trend is clear enough. People are shifting to non-carbonated drinks in a rather big way after the CSE report," Jena said.

Ishaq Gandhi, proprietor of Gandhi Coldrinks, one of the leading cold-drink chain in the city, said consumption of corbonated colas have gone down to a large extent.

"Nowadays, only committed consumers are drinking Pepsi or Thums Up. Even the Rs 5 bottles are not selling," said Gandhi, whose Danapith shop has seen the sales of carbonated drinks going down by around 60 bottles per day.

"Although the weather is not too warm, sales of faluda, lassi and sherbat have gone up significantly. It would be safe to say that the cola customers have now shifted to the sherbat."

Dinesh Bhojwani of Kirti Parlour in Maninagar said the sales of lassi at his outlet have almost doubled in the past four or five days. "Earlier, people preferred the Rs 5 bottles of Pepsi and Thums Up. But nowadays, people ask for lassi instead of carbonated drinks of any kind."

He added that the sales of one and two-litre bottles of carbonated drinks have almost come down to zero over the past five days.

Meanwhile, the official spokesperson of Pepsi on Monday reiterated that all the firm's products met all international standards and the company delivers only safe and world-class quality products to consumers.

Specifically, with regard to any kind of pollutants, pesticides included, all Pepsi products meet testing standards, he added.