Indians cold to branded soft drinks

The advertisements are all over, bombarding us with calls to sip soft drinks, health, sports and fruit drinks. Yet, for all the hype on television and other advertising media, store-bought packaged beverages constitute only a small portion of non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the country, says a study. Anita Sharan reports.

The advertisements are all over, bombarding us with calls to sip soft drinks, health, sports and fruit drinks.

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Yet, for all the hype on television and other advertising media, store-bought packaged beverages constitute only a small portion of non-alcoholic beverages consumed in the country, says a study.

The survey of 8,300 people across 15 cities by Boston Analytics reveals that urban and suburban Indians consume non-alcoholic store bought beverages less than once a day.

But make no mistake, Indians remain big guzzlers and sip 120 billion litres of non-alcoholic drinks every year, but only 5 per cent of it is accounted for by store-bought packaged beverages.

In other words, the bulk of India is content with home-brewed drinks, squashes and small-scale and shop-mixed juices and ethnic favourites such as nimboopani (lemonade), shikanjvi and kanji.