Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

The Wisynco Group has stopped producing the popular Bigga Cola soft drinks to concentrate on manufacturing and distributing the international brand Coca-Cola range of sodas and flavoured drinks.

Director of sales at Wisynco, Hal Holness told the Financial Gleaner that his company stopped producing the flavour as a condition of them accepting the local franchise to manufacture and distribute Coca-Cola products. He said Bigga Cola would have been in direct competition with Coca-Cola.

"We had an agreement that once the raw material ended we would no longer produce the Bigga Cola," explained Holness, who said the flavour had remained on the market a few months after accepting the franchise as they had not completely utilised all the raw material purchased to make the drink until mid-June.

It is not clear where Bigga Cola ranked in the local cola market, but with Wisynco's very strong distribution network, the brand had gained popularity behind the Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola brands.

Increase in coca-cola sales

Holness said the Coca-Cola brand has already seen increase in sales, but declined to divulge the product's market position or sales volume. Instead he said Wisynco's managing director, William Mahfood, was aiming to capture between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of market share in the beverage market within the next two to five years. But with Pepsi Cola controlling 86 per cent of the local cola market, Mahfood noted that Wisynco will have to ramp up its marketing and distribution drive.

Wisynco took over the franchise of selling, marketing, distributing and merchandising Coca-Cola's products in Jamaica from Facey Commodity Limited last year May. The range of soft drinks include the regular Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Fanta and Schweppes carbonated beverages, as well as Minute Maid Fruit Coolers, Minute Maid Juices, Dasani Water and Powerade.

Holness was optimistic that his company could achieve its target, given Coca-Cola's Bag in Box (BIB) policy, along with Wisynco's strong distribution network. The BIB policy allows Wisynco to take the brand into the hotels, a market it was not able to penetrate with the Bigga brand.

"By year 2010, every point of sales must have every brand of our beverage," said Wisynco's sales director.

Holness pointed out that the Fanta drink, a product of Coca-Cola, was no longer carried in the smaller sizes as a trade-off with Coca-Cola to prevent it from directly competing with the other soft drinks produced under the Bigga brand. Fanta is now only available in the two-litre sizes.

"We benefit from both arrangements," he said.