Brewers roam the factories

The main owner of the Bochkari brewing company, Vadim Smagin, may expand his business in the soft drinks segment. Its structure thought about buying a closed PepsiCo plant in Ramenskoye near Moscow, probably to increase sales in the Moscow market. The niche formed after the cessation of the Coca-Cola and Pepsi spill in Russia has not yet been filled, but competition is growing.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) received a petition from Klin Aqua LLC, the main owner of the Bochkari brewing company, Vadim Smagin, for preliminary consent to receive fixed assets from Wimm-Bill-Dann Drinks JSC (“WBD Drinks”). The corresponding notice was published in the FAS database.

WBD Drinks is owned by American PepsiCo, one of the largest food and beverage manufacturers. WBD Drinks produced juices at a plant in Ramenskoye near Moscow, in 2015 the enterprise was closed, and production was concentrated at the Lebedyansky plant in Lipetsk. PepsiCo said it had decided to sell the site in Ramenskoye in 2021. They declined to comment further.

According to the data available to Kommersant, in January-June 2022, the Bochkarevsky brewery in the Altai Territory produced 3.37 million decaliters of beer (brands Hmelka, Mazai, etc.), ranking ninth in terms of the indicator in the Russian Federation. It also produces lemonades, energy drinks, water, kvass. After the bottling of the global brands Coca-Cola and PepsiCo was stopped in the Russian Federation, the plant launched Bochkari drinks with cola, orange and lemon flavors. Klin Aqua, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, was established this October, and the main activity of the company is the production of soft drinks and water. Klin Aqua did not respond to the e-mail specified in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and at the office of the Bochkarevsk plant “Kommersant”.

According to a Kommersant source on the market, the plant in Ramenskoye today is an empty production site with warehouse space. Before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the asset was estimated at up to 500 million rubles, the interlocutor of Kommersant said. In May 2022, the Federal Antimonopoly Service approved an application for the acquisition of WBD Drinks from a manufacturer of cheeses under the Alti brand of Multipro Group of Companies. But the deal, apparently, did not take place. According to another Kommersant source, Multipro has already expanded its own capacities. Multipro also did not provide a comment.

According to the interlocutor of “Kommersant” in the market, the Bochkarevsky plant is now actively interested in the development of soft drinks in the market. But these are extremely price-sensitive products, and high logistics costs from the Altai Territory make the company’s drinks less competitive in the Moscow market, he points out.

One of the founders of Famous Amazing Brands (Vanilla Flight and Anarchy drinks) Anton Stelmakov points out that the main share of soft drink consumption in Russia is in the center of the country with high effective demand, as well as in the south and the Volga region with a hot summer season. According to him, the site in the Moscow region just allows serving these regions. As Mr. Stelmakov notes, the market niche formed with the departure of global brands has not yet been filled.

Maxim Novikov, president of the Union of Juice, Water and Drink Producers (Soyuznapitki), says that any site has its own limitations, including logistical ones, and, perhaps, the owners of the Bochkarevsky plant saw an opportunity to increase sales in the center of the country. But, Mr. Novikov notes, the segment of soft drinks in Moscow and the Moscow region is already extremely competitive.

In addition to large profile players, such as Chernogolovka Group of Companies (Fantola, Turbo Energy, Baikal), brewing companies have also launched soft drink lines, including MPBK Ochakovo (CoolCola, Fancy and Street) and the Russian structure of Heineken (Royal Cola, Tony Lemony). According to NielsenIQ, in the six months since April, more than 100 new brands of carbonated drinks have appeared in the Russian Federation, which in September accounted for over 9% of sales in the category.

Anatoly Kostyrev