Industrial Visit To Pepsi Co. By The BBA Students- 2014

On 22nd September 2014, the students of the Dept. of Business Administration Bhawanipur Education Society College went for an Industrial Visit to the Pepsi Company franchisee factory (Varun Beverages Pvt.Ltd – the Flagship of the RKG group) located at Kamalgazi., Kolkata. More than 50 students accompanied by faculty Prof. Saroda Chatterjee, the HOD Prof. Tridib Sengupta and office staff Mr. Nandadulal Jana went for the visit. Students belonged to the 2nd and 3rd year batches went for the Industrial Visit. Varun Beverages has its headquarters at Gurgaon. It has 11 plants throughout and outside India, among them Kolkata is the 3rd largest plant. Others are at Noida, Guahati, Rajasthan, Goa, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Varun Beverages Limited provides bottling and distribution services for beverage manufacturers Pepsi Co. Varun Beverages is a franchisee of the Pepsi Co.

The Company manufactures and markets carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks and package drinking water under the Pepsi brand. The company’s beverage portfolio also includes 7UP, Miranda, and Mountain Dew brands; low calorie drinks such as Diet Pepsi; hydrating and nutritional beverages such as Aquafina drinking water; and juice based drinks such as Tropicana, Slice, and Twister. The company also offers local soda brands. It owns franchisee for Yum Restaurants International including Pizza Hut and KFC.

The company was incorporated in 1995 and is based in Gurgaon, India with additional offices in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mozambique, Zambia, and Morocco. Varun Beverages Limited operates as a subsidiary of Varun Beverages International Limited. Varun Beverages Limited is planning to spend around $300 million for the expansion of its existing business in Asia and Africa including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Zambia and Mozambique in the next one year. The investment plan also includes acquisition of companies, and would raise the company’s employment strength from 4,200 to about 8,000 over the next few years in South Asia and Africa.

The employees of the company gave us a warm welcome and introduced us with the senior Plant Manager, Asst. Manager, HR heads and others. The plant site was well maintained and clean. They served us with light refreshments, obviously along with Pepsi, Sprite and Miranda. They made two groups of our students and took one group for the presentation which include all the areas like HR, Finance and Marketing of the company and the other group for the inside of the plant in an alternative manner.

We were made to wear caps on our head, leave behind all our belongings and metallic objects, for the sake of safety and hygiene, inside the pit of the production norms. As we roamed the production site we got to know more about the Pepsi Co. the soft drink products under Pepsi Co. are Mountain Dew, 7UP, Pepsi, Slice and Nimbuzz. The sales turnover of Varun beverages is around 400 crores and production 19 million boxes per year.

The ingredients of Pepsi Co. are generated from 12 countries all over the world in which India is one of it. The raw materials of this plant of Varun Beverages come from China. Till date Pepsi Co. is rated the second best soft drink provider as per the market share in India. The main constituents for the production of the soft drink are 90% water and rest sugar syrup and other ingredients. They get the raw material of their product Nimbuzz from Germany which is stored in -16 degree Celsius. Nowadays they are also concentrating on the fruit juice market and expanding the production of slice.

We had a great experience visiting the world class manufacturing unit and enjoyed the hospitality provided by the authority. Before leaving we were served with one bottle each of Pepsi and Slice along with a food packet. We are thankful to the College Authorities and also to the Varun Beverages for organizing such an enlightening and enjoyable industrial visit.