Naturally inclined

Ample studies show that people are getting more aware about exploring choices that reflect their commitment to better lifestyles. We have been listening to our consumers about their likes, tastes and preferences. We want to support consumers in the choices they want to make. The company continuously looks at diversifying its portfolio to suit the evolving needs of the consumers in the country.

We’ve expanded range of flavors in our ready-to-drink juice portfolio. It’s important to us to make sure that consumers have a choice, which is why we also offer a variety of great-tasting beverages with low or no sugar and calories in a range of serve sizes.

Juice and juice-based drinks, quite naturally, go along with our quest for great taste and more natural choices. “What ingredients and processes can we combine to increase the quantity of natural ingredients in our products, lower added sugar, and still make our customers smack their lips and go aha!” we ask ourselves. Fruit is naturally sweet. It is colorful, flavorful, aromatic. It pleases all the senses. Fruit, more fruit, and more locally-grown fruit is one of the answers.

Our response is on the market shelves. An ever-expanding juice portfolio with diverse fruits and flavors, levels of sweet and tart, and drinking experiences. We have juices, juices with fruit chunks, juices with more fruit pulp, and sparkling water with added juices. Simply put, fruit juices in as many ways that we can serve them.

More fruit from the Indian soil

So what if your favorite fruit isn’t available throughout the year? You can now have the taste and goodness of your favorite fruits with Minute Maid. This goodness comes from the combined virtue of wind, water, sun and soil of this beautiful land. This is what Minute Maid captures in a bottle. The 100% fruit juice range has the wholesomeness and nothing else of orange, apple, mixed fruit and pomegranate.

A little tart, a little sweet, a little pulpy, sometimes gritty, Minute Maid is hardworking fruit in a bottle, sourced from farmers in India.

Taste of provenance

How did Minute Maid find its unique and interesting flavors? What helped us respond so quickly with the variety of juices that Minute Maid now offers? Well, we looked around us, and found that we were surrounded by answers. India has a diversity of fruits with different varieties from different landscapes to interest different palates. Some of these regional fruit varieties are not just popular, but iconic in the lexicon of Indian fruit varieties. Like guava, or amrood, from Allahabad; dussheri mango from UP; santra, oranges from Maharashtra; and litchi from Bihar. The endeavor has been to source fruit pulp and concentrate from lands which are most conducive to the highest-quality harvest. The “Ras ras mein India” initiative uses regional varieties of fruit, from different “geographies and climate types.

Oranges and sweet limes, mosambi, of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, ripened and sweetened by winds from Gujarat and Karnataka. UP guavas grown on the northern plains, fed by Himalayan rivers; handpicked, pressed, passed through sieves that let the pulp through.

Juice and more

Our exploration of new recipes, served in new, interesting ways is what makes The Coca-Cola Company more than just Coca-Cola—the brand. Our forays into new territories are inspired by what our consumers want. To enable consumers move towards more natural options, we’ve crafted beverages with more added fruit, vitamin and mineral content that celebrate nature. The result is more than 25 products on supermarket and kirana store shelves, with more added fruit, in a variety of flavors and pack sizes, which are, accessible in a safe, hygienic, consistent quality to as many as possible.

· Minute Maid Pulpy and Gritty

Pulpy Orange, Pulpy Mosambi, Pulpy Santra, and Gritty Guava

·Minute Maid Sparkle

Apple Sparkle—apple juice made from Kashmiri apples. With a light sense of sparkle.

· Minute Maid Colour—Black grape sparkling drink crafted around vernacular taste using a regional aromatic black grape variety popular with fresh juice stalls in south India. Currently catering to the market in Tamil Nadu.

· Minute Maid Fruit Punches

Santra and Mosambi

Indian Twister

· Minute Maid Nutriforce

Apple juice drink fortified with iron, vitamins B, B12, iron and zinc

· Minute Maid Perfect Fruit

A natural-sugars-only, zero-fat, non-dairy frozen dessert made from real fruit. In short, perfect fruit!

A circular economy of fruits

India ranks second in production of fruits and vegetables, having 15 agro-climatic zones, which can support most of the fruits. Despite this, the level of fruit processing in India is very low (around 2.2%) as compared to countries like the US (65%), China (23%) & Philippines (78%). There’s ample opportunity to increase the level of fruit processing in India by improving farm-level productivity and availability of fruits.

Creating a sustainable circular economy starting by teaching farmers to more than doubling their produce, coupled with setting up of economies of scale fruit processing, creating demand for processed fruit juice/pulp to be used in ready-to-drink fruit-based beverages kickstarts monetary value moving from consumers all the way in the hands of farmers. Incidentally, farmers when they have more money, they also become consumers.

The journey starts with farm-level productivity improvement by teaching and creating a belief through demo and progressive farms in using ultra-high to high-density fruit plantation. These are coupled with modern Package of Practices (POP) to enable efficient use of input materials like saplings from high-tech nursery, drip irrigation, drip-based fertigation. These efforts can go a long way in more than doubling the fruit produce at farm-level while gradually reducing the input cost. We call this the Unnati Program. 

Building capacities

Read more about Mango  Unnati, where farmers have more than doubled their mango yield. Read about our initiatives on apple at Project Apple Unnati. Also Project Unnati Orange for sweet oranges.  Read about how Coca-Cola India signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Food Processing Industry in 2017 to commit $1.7 billion over five years, along with its bottling partners, to purchase processed pulp and concentrate and help develop infrastructure for fruit processing.