DB offshoot signs deal with PepsiCo

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 20

DB offshoot signs deal with PepsiCo

PA Wellington PepsiCo Incorporated has signed an agreement with Dominion Breweries, Ltd’s, subsidiary, PepsiCola Bottlers New Zealand, Ltd, giving it the exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute Pepsi-Cola in New Zealand.

The agreement was signed in Auckland by PepsiCo Incorporated’s vice-president, Far East Region, Mr F. David Jones, and the chairman of Dominion Breweries,

Mr H. G. Callam. Dominion Breweries was the 609th bottler PepsiCo has appointed, and brings the number of countries in which the drink is manufactured and sold to 147, the two firms said in a statement.

Previously Pepsi was bottled in New Zealand by three small companies and was available in only 5 per cent of the New Zealand market. Mr Jones said the Dominion Breweries backing in New Zealand gave Pepsi a running start for its attack on the New Zealand market.

Although the formal signing of the agreement

has only just taken place, work had already begun on the first of the series of bottling and distribution plants which would be the basis for PepsiCola’s move into the New Zealand soft drink market.

The first plant was being built at Wiri, in Manukau City, on a large site which had room for considerable expansion, Mr Jones said.

Initially it will have the capacity to produce some 40 per cent of the country’s present soft drink consumption.

Last year PepsiCo made sales of SNZIS billion.