In a bid to scale up its FMCG business, Reliance Industries has acquired soft drink brand Campa. The brand was once a market leader with its cola variant Campa Cola. The company is set to launch the brand in October, near Diwali.
Reliance acquired Campa from Delhi-based Pure Drinks Group for around Rs 22 crore, a report by The Economic Times (ET) said. It is expected to be relaunched in its iconic cola, lemon, and orange flavours. With this, the brand will look to compete with Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, which in 1990, had led to the slow death of Campa.
The product will be available for purchase in Reliance Retail stores, JioMart and kirana stores that buy products from Reliance.
Buying Campa is a part of Reliance’s wider strategy to enter the FMCG market. At the 45th Annual General Meeting (AGM), Isha Ambani, director, of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) said, “This year, we will launch our FMCG goods business.”
Reliance Retail was also launched on WhatsApp with a partnership between Meta and JioMart. It allows customers to order groceries from WhatsApp.
The ET report also suggested that the company is in advanced talks with an edible oil and namkeen brand, and a soap brand. The due diligence is currently going on.
“Reliance has identified almost two dozen potential brands which can be acquired or for joint ventures to strengthen the FMCG business. A couple of deals have already fallen through due to the high valuations sought. Reliance’s strategy is to go for small-sized deals valued at a few crores,” an executive was quoted as saying in the ET report.
Campa, in the 1990s, along with soft drink brands developed by Parle namely, Thums Up, Gold Spot and Limca, dominated the market. However, after Coca-Cola subsequently acquired the three Parle brands on its re-entry, Campa could not compete and fell out of the market.
It has made repeated attempts to re-enter the market, with the latest being in 2019, but failed to take on Coca-Cola due to a lack of financial strength.