PepsiCo To Build Largest India Beverage Plant

HYDERABAD, IndiaPepsiCo India announced plans to build a new greenfield beverage manufacturing plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, to be the company's largest beverage plant in India.

PepsiCo intends to invest more than Rs 1,200 crores in the project as part of the company's plans to invest Rs 33,000 crores (USD $5.5 billion) in India by 2020.

The plant will manufacture a range of beverages, including fruit juice based drinks, carbonated soft drinks and sports drinks. The plant's state-of-the-art technologies will emphasize production efficiencies, environment protection and safety. Further, the plant will be PepsiCos most water-efficient beverage plant in India.

"India is a high priority market for PepsiCo and we see tremendous opportunities to expand our food and beverage business here in the coming years," said D Shivakumar, chairman and CEO, PepsiCo India. "Andhra Pradesh is a large beverage market with robust demand through the year. The Sri City plant will boost our production capacity and support the growing demand for PepsiCo Indias beverage products in Asia Pacific and peninsular India."

The plant will be built in three phases, and will supply jobs to more than 8,000 people upon completion, according to Sri N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Honble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

The company will also substantially increase sourcing of mango pulp from Andhra Pradesh in the next six years.