29 Nov 2018

Africa’s largest Coca-Cola bottler, Coca-Cola Beverage Africa (CCBA), has received the requisite regulatory approval to acquire the Coca-Cola soft drinks business, Beverage Manufacturers.

Addressing the Media on Tuesday, CCBA managing director, Mr Norton Kingwill said with the acquisition, the non-alcoholic ready-to-drink business, Beverages Manufacturers would now trade as Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana (CCBB).

Mr Kingwill said in terms of the sale agreement, CCBA acquired 50.1 per cent of Beverage Manufacturers (Botswana) and the balance of 49.9 per cent would be owned by Sechaba Brewery Holdings, a listed company in Botswana.

He said the acquisition by CCBA added one more plant to the company’s footprint on the continent, CCBA bottles. “It also distributes trademarked beverages owned by The Coca-Cola Company and is the world’s eighth largest Coca-Cola bottler by revenue,” he said.

Including the Botswana acquisition, CCBA now has over 16 000 employees across its operations in Africa with 32 bottling plants in 11 countries.

Mr Kingwill said all the current jobs of 212 staff members would be retained in the new business while the minority shareholder terms would remain in place.

“As we progress to becoming a total beverage company, our way forward includes a number of consumer priorities including reducing sugar in our products, evolving our recipes to make our beverages better and more nutritious as well as making many more varieties of drinks than we have in the past.

In addition, we are also providing smaller, more convenient packaging, with accessible information on our packs and we do not target our marketing to children under 12,” he said.

He also said while food and beverage packaging was an important part of the modern lives, they were aware of the packaging problem.

“Like many companies that make products everyone’s love, our packaging has contributed to this global challenge, which we as CCBA, together with The Coca-Cola Company, have a responsibility to help solve.”

Mr Kingwill said to do this, they would invest in the planet and packaging by leading the industry with a bold and ambitious goal to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one they sell by 2030.

He said in this context, they were not only committed to offering consumers’ choice, but investing and innovating for the future and ensuring that they support local government priorities.

The managing director said before CCBA starts producing new products, their employees would spend nine months at the manufacturer’s country of origin to hone the skills necessary to bring those products to the high-quality standards they set.

He said this involved reducing sugar in their drinks, giving consumers options of light or zero-sugar drinks and introducing reduced portions.
 

He said this was in line with WHO’s guidelines that sugar should be no more than 10 per cent of the calorie consumption per day.

Mr Kingwill said from a product portfolio point of view, CCBA had 508 different products in the market where it operated and 65 per cent more than they had last year. ENDS