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Southern Bottlers Limited (Sobo) has installed a multi-million kwacha plant in Lilongwe to produce plastic bottles for soft drinks, the company’s chief executive Chadwick Mphande announced on Thursday.
Mphande said the PolyEthylene Terrapthalate (Pet), as the factory is called, has cost the firm K112 million to install.
He said the new innovation follows a research done two years ago that showed consumer trends gearing towards products with sophisticated packaging.
Mphande added that the same period also saw the emergence of competition in new packages both from directly imported soft drinks and similar local products.
“We tested the market ourselves by bringing in the core Coke products of Coke, Fanta and Sprite in Pet bottles from our cousins in Ndola [Zambia].”
“The message got confirmed very clearly that we needed to change or introduce new, more attractive, trendier packages for our Malawian consumers,” said Mphande.
Unlike glass containers, said Mphande, Pet packages are flexible, convenient, light and do not demand deposit money from customers.
He said the Lilongwe plant, which has already started producing 500 millilitre packages, will also manufacture one litre and eventually two litre containers.
Quench, Orange Squash, Lime Cordial and Lemon Squash, Coke, Fanta and Sprite are the products that will have new packages from the Pet plant.
Mphande also revealed that Sobo will next month introduce a new drink called Splash in three flavours of orange, Cream Soda and Strawberry.
“We are hopeful that these improvements are going, eventually, to translate into consumer satisfaction as well as benefiting financially, the company,” he said.
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