Coca-Cola’s products in India range between packaged drinks such as Coke, Sprite, Thums Up, Fanta, Maaza, Limca, Rim Zim, to the packaged water brands, Kinley and Smartwater, to the coffee brands Georgia and Costa Coffee.
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New Delhi: Global beverage manufacturer Coca-Cola is set to acquire a minority stake in online food ordering platform food Thrive, reported Economic Times quoting executives directly aware of the development. Thrive has already partnered with over 5,500 restaurants and directly competes with Swiggy and Zomato.
If true, this will be Coca-Cola’s first investment in a startup in India.
“The strategic investment will give Coca-Cola a distinct edge over rivals, as it will push consumers to order only Coca-Cola’s beverages along with the food orders they place on the Thrive app, help them to customise orders, sell package deals and meal combinations, and push loyalty codes,” said one of the executives mentioned in the report.
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Jubilant FoodWorks, which holds the master franchise for Domino’s Pizza in India, had in late 2021 acquired 35 per cent stake in Thrive for around Rs 24.75 crore. Jubilant Foodworks then said that the move it had then said would help it push direct deliveries to consumers as well as provide it access to consumer data.
Coca-Cola’s products in India range between packaged drinks such as Coke, Sprite, Thums Up, Fanta, Maaza, Limca, Rim Zim, to the packaged water brands, Kinley and Smartwater, to the coffee brands Georgia and Costa Coffee.
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Coca-Cola has only selected exclusive global partnerships such as that with fast food chain McDonald’s, which sells only Coca-Cola’s beverages at its outlets.
“The stake acquisition by Coca-Cola will drive consumer engagement for the beverage maker with both restaurant and consumers, and give it access to consumer data since Thrive has a large base of mid-sized restaurant partners offering diverse cuisines. Thums Up, for example, goes well with Indian spicy cuisine while Maaza mango drink can be pushed at restaurants which focus on children,” the ET report added.
After the recent earnings call, Sanket Ray, Coca-Cola president, India and SouthWest Asia, had said that the company has been pushing associations and pairings with meals and food as one of its core strategies to increase consumption occasions.
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Coca-Cola, in September, last year launched its global meals platform called Coke is Cooking in India with with Kolkata being the first city across the world, as pr the company website.
Arnab Roy, Coca-Cola Vice-President, Head of Marketing, India and SouthWest Asia, had then told ET that the company is looking at a vast opportunity to drive consumption with food pairings in India. “Most of the consumption of Coca-Cola brands happens over food. The closest example is McDonald’s. If one goes to McDonald’s, chances are high that the food would be paired with Coke,” Roy had said.
The online food delivery platform, Thrive, set up by three entrepreneurs Dhruv Dewan, Karan Chechani and Krishi Fagwani in 2020, enables consumers to order food across restaurant partners.
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Thrive also has a provides restaurants a self-serve tool to build their own sub-portals on its platform so they can get direct online orders from consumers. As per the ET report, Thrive has gained a large restaurant base because it charges one-fourth the commissions from restaurants compared with 18-25 per cent charged by Zomato and Swiggy.
