Soon, cold drink prices will make you feel the heat

Here’s a piece of bad news for soft-drink lovers. Your favourite drink will soon become dearer as soft drink majors PepsiCo India and the Coca-Cola Company have both decided to increase their product prices in India by about 20%. The rise in prices will be across the country and will come into effect in a phased manner across regions.

While PepsiCo has already hiked prices for its 200ml and 300ml soft drink bottles by Rs2 in most markets, the price rise for other bottle sizes is expected to happen over the course of time. Even Coca-Cola has already increased the price of its 200ml and 300ml bottles by Re1 and Rs2 respectively.  

“Given the recent rise in commodity prices and those of the ingredients for our beverages, our bottling partners have raised the prices of select packs in some markets. The price increase is being implemented in a phased manner in different geographies,” Coca-Cola told DNA in an email reply.

While a Coca-Cola spokesperson confirmed that the company was hiking prices in the range of 9-20% across its soft drinks portfolio, he declined to comment further on the issue.

The soft drinks from the Coca-Cola stable that will become costlier are Coke, Thums Up, Sprite, Fanta, Limca, Minute Maid Pulpy Orange and Maaza. Also Kinley, the mineral water brand of Coca-Cola, will become dearer. 

PepsiCo India Holdings’s beverages portfolio has brands such as Pepsi, Nimbooz, Mirinda, 7Up, Mountain Dew and Slice, which will all cost more.