As it becomes the
largest Coca-Cola bottler and achieves a significant increase in sales, the
Mexican company FEMSA begins to invest in non-carbonated drinks, the dairy
industry and coffee machines.
FEMSA, now the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the
world
As of Oct. 3, Coca-Cola FEMSA is the largest bottling company for the
Coca-Cola brand worldwide. On that day The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC)
closed a deal with the European company Coca-Cola Enterprise (CCE).
Through this transaction the European company gives up its operations in
North America (the United States and Canada) in exchange for
its plants in Norway and Sweden, thus reducing its share in the
total sales volume of the Coca-Cola system, from approximately 16 percent
to 8 percent.
FEMSA,
for its part, will retain its 10 percent share in the brand's global sales
volumes, making it the largest bottling company not just in Latin America,
but also in the world.
Matte Leão en Brasil = FEMSA
Through a joint-venture agreement with The Coca-Cola Company, FEMSA
has added a whole line of ready-to-drink teas to its Brazil portfolio of
products, which will be sold under the brand name Matte Leão. In early
2010, it began marketing Leão Ice Tea, with very good results. Now it has
added three new products to its portfolio: Matte Leão, Chá (Tea)
Leão and Guaraleão.
In the last five years, the ready-to-drink tea market has grown in Brazil
at rates of nearly 20 percent, and projections forecast that those rates will
remain steady over the next few years.
Matte Leão
is a brand of tea with products both in the "ready-to-drink" segment and in the
dry segment (tea bags). Now with FEMSA's distributing power it will reach
over 217,000 sale points.
Brazil,
a country of 193 millions people as of June 2010, presently has 16 Coca-Cola
bottling companies, among them FEMSA, which sells its products in
three territories: São Paulo, the state of Minas Gerais (including
its capital Belo Horizonte), and Mato Grosso.
FEMSA acquires Panama's Grupo Industrias Lácteas
FEMSA
announced that it has signed a preliminary agreement to acquire the entire
capital stock of the Panamanian Grupo Industrias Lácteas ("Estrella
Azul" and "Del Prado").
If the final deal comes through, FEMSA will enter the dairy products
segment, one of the most dynamic, largest and most valuable segments of Latin
America's non-alcoholic beverage industry.
Grupo Industrias Lácteas
is an industrial conglomerate formed by Estrella Azul, Conservas
Panameñas and Plásticos Modernos.
It was founded 60 years ago, has three production plants, covers all of
Panama's domestic market, employs some 1,800 workers and is the country's
leading dairy operator.
FEMSA to compete with Nestlé in Mexican
coffee machine market
FEMSA has
decided to compete with Nestlé in the Mexican market of coffee machines.
The bottling company is installing coffee dispensing machines in cities where
Coca-Cola is distributed, and it plans to install as many as 35,000
of these coffee dispensers under the brand Blak in neighborhood stores.
Its incursion in the coffee market is part of FEMSA's strategy to move
forward in the non-carbonated drinks segment, in partnership of The Coca-Cola
Company, which has a 50 percent share in the Mexican bottling company.
FEMSA
began a coffee pilot program last year and hopes to have 5,000 dispensing
machines in Mexico City by next December, with that number potentially
increasing by sevenfold over the next four years.
In 2007, FEMSA acquired Mexico's second largest juice
manufacturer, Jugos del Valle, increasing its sales to Latin America
through partnerships with bottling companies in the region. "If the Blak
brand follows the model of Jugos del Valle, the number of dispensing
machines could go up as high as 60,000," FEMSA's financial
executive officer, Javier Astaburuaga, said.
