Interview: Angelo George, CEO, Bisleri International

Bottled water company Bisleri International has been working overtime to increase its manufacturing capacity and to expand the distribution footprint for its carbonated beverage portfolio to reach its ambitious growth target. In this interview, Angelo George, CEO, Bisleri International, tells Akanksha Nagar that premiumisation will be a key pivot of its growth strategy. Edited excerpts:

Bisleri expects its premium brand Vedica to become a Rs 100-crore brand soon.

How premium can you go in a category like water?

Vedica Spring Water is a key thrust area for us in our premium play. It now comes with NSF certification and the company has introduced it in a luxury glass bottle at a price point of Rs 350. It is available in all top restaurants and luxury hotel chains. We also have Vedica Himalayan Sparkling Water (priced at Rs 175 for a 300-ml bottle) — this launch was timed in October last year to coincide with the festive season. Since its launch, we have seen encouraging signs with the brand now being placed at premium 5-star restaurants.

Bisleri Vedica has grown 2.5 times from the pre-pandemic years (2018-19 to FY22). We are looking at scaling up its production and have set up a dedicated team focusing on driving sales, mainly targeting the HoReCa category (which contributes to about 50% of the total pie of Bisleri Vedica). This is a healthy mix in terms of familiarising consumers with the product in HoReCa and then ensuring repeat purchases in trade.

From an experiential marketing perspective, the brand has partnered with premium events in the country across genres of music, art, fashion, food, and lifestyle such as Lollapalooza, Gin Explorer’s Club, and Red Bull Showrun. These experiential associations have increased brand awareness and trial opportunities.

You have been planning to go aggressive in the market for carbonated beverages this year…

The category has seen a little bit of a slow burn from 2019. As it is a very cluttered category with some really big players, it needs to be strengthened with very distinct flavours. After a lot of work that has gone on in the last couple of years, Bisleri has introduced Bisleri Pop, Limonata, Spicy Jeera, and Rev — all are distinctly different from the others. Some of the leading OTT stars are the face of these brands today. For instance, Sanjana Sanghi for Limonata, Sabha Azad, and Arman for Pop. These actors represent the pulse of today’s Gen Z.

For this portfolio, generating trials is important and we have tied up with leading music festivals featuring the likes of Badshah and King, besides being present with activations in several college festivals. We will be extensively driving our efforts towards the last three-feet point of sale branding, presence in key modern trade outlets, driving trials in youth-focussed events, and a healthy digital narrative. In the carbonated beverage segment, we are scaling up manufacturing capacities and expanding the distribution channels.

Is competition from unbranded and spurious products still a big issue for you?

The distribution network holds the key in this — which is something the company has been focusing on. With a strong emphasis on urban areas, which are the primary markets for packaged drinking water, the company has a network that cuts across all channels including general trade, on-premise including HoReCa, corporates and institutions, hospitals, modern retail, e-commerce and individual homes. The company is deepening its presence in districts that have high per capita income and is tapping the potential of smaller towns as well. The outlet coverage has increased by 20% in the top 40 towns. E-commerce and quick commerce today contribute almost 4-5% to the overall revenue with the D2C app (Bisleri@Doorstep) almost doubling in turnover on a year-to-year basis. While the app ensures delivery within 24 hours, we are now trying to bring it down.

Are you on track with your four-year vision plan unveiled in 2022?

We kick-started a four-year vision plan in April 2022 with an aim to more than double our sales from the pre-pandemic levels. By 2025, we aim to be a Rs 5,000-crore revenue company. This will in turn represent consumer value turnover of Rs 11,500 crore. Our overall sales growth has been averaging ~17% from 2018 to 2022 and our vision is to grow with a CAGR of 25% for our plan period, ahead of the estimated segment growth rate of 14%. We aim to increase our market share from 16% to 21% of the overall bottled water segment at the end of our vision period, which is mostly 40% of the organised player market. Our progress has been promising.