Is it all about Carbon dioxide?

New Delhi, May 9: In the hot market for cold beverages, two acronyms are slugging it out: CSD and SDC and trying to muscle into each other’s turf. SDC is a fast-growing category, whereas CSD is big but is typified by low per capita consumption.

For the uninitiated, Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) is a Rs 7,000-crore industry of aerated or fizz drinks dominated in India by the cola majors — Coke and Pepsi.

Soft Drink Concentrate (SDC), on the other hand, is a Rs 300-crore powdered drinks business that primarily score over the fizz drinks in terms of affordability per glass.

Two years back, Coca-Cola, essentially a fizz drink company, got into the SDC category with its Sunfill sachets. Currently, it has three flavours, orange, mango and lime in two pack sizes, Tarang which gives 18 glasses at Rs 15 and Anand which gives two glass packs at Re 1.

Rasna, which claims it has more than 90 per cent market share in the SDC segment, has tried to get into the fizz-drink segment in an unusual way. The Ahmedabad-based home grown company has launched this season, what it calls the ‘first indigenous cola’ in the SDC format, called Rasna Cola Cola. It is priced at 50 paise per glass and is being made available in pack sizes of 1, 2, 6 and 20 serves.

Interestingly, Rasna has signed actor Karishma Kapoor as the brand endorser for Rasna Cola Cola, who in the past has endorsed brand Coca-Cola as well.

Coca-Cola is upbeat about its SDC — Sunfill. Sunil Gupta, vice-president, public affairs and communication, said, “We have appointed 400 extra distributors for Sunfill alone, who will not distribute any of our CSD product. We are targeting to access 200 million extra consumers through Sunfill.”

Coca-Cola is looking at Sunfill as a drink that will allow it to enter the rural markets and SEC (Socio Economic Category) of C and D on the affordability plank. On the same plank, the cola majors have been reducing the price of their CSD, but if it can really go beyond Rs 5 for 200 ml is a business decision that only time will tell. Meanwhile, an SDC can act as the ‘country cousin’, quite literally, it seems.

Arch rival of Coke, Pepsi does not have any presence in the SDC segment though. Rasna, on its part, is keen to convert the home consumption pattern of a drink from orange to cola, with its Rasna Cola Cola. It is also talking health. “It is a healthy alternative to aerated drinks with a cola flavour,” said Piruz Khambatta, CMD Rasna Pvt Limited.

Gupta thinks that per capita consumption of fizz drinks in India is very low. “There is a lot of growth opportunity in the entire beverage market. The CSD market is only Rs 7,000 crore, whereas the total beverage market is Rs 19,000 crore. That is why Coca-Cola is keen on other beverage categories like SDC, and also ready to drink (RTD) tea and coffee.”