PepsiCo Brazil Chooses Filling Technology from SIG Combibloc

The key factors in PepsiCo’s decision to work with SIG Combibloc were the high performance and the low wastage rates of our filling machines.

13 April 2012 --- Food and beverage company PepsiCo Brazil has opted to work with SIG Combibloc. To broaden the range of packaging solutions it can provide, a CFA 712 filling machine to aseptically fill Toddynho chocolate drinks in combiblocSmall carton packs was installed at PepsiCo’s Palmares (Alagoas) production plant. “The key factors in PepsiCo’s decision to work with SIG Combibloc were the high performance and the low wastage rates of our filling machines. New business opportunities to bring this partnership even closer are being discussed already”, says Luciana Galvão, Head of Marketing at SIG Combibloc in South America.

PepsiCo's success story in Brazil began in 1953. Today the company manufactures at 15 locations across the country. With almost 100 distribution agencies and 9,000 employees, PepsiCo Brazil is one of the country's biggest businesses. Its portfolio includes brands such as Frito Lay (snacks), Quaker (breakfast cereals), Toddy/Toddynho (milk mix drinks), Propel and Gatorade (sports drinks), Trop Coco and Kero Coco (coconut water), Frutzzz, H2OH!, Pepsi-Cola (carbonated beverages) and – in cooperation with Unilever – Lipton (ready-to-drink tea).

Category with potential
Milk mix drinks are hugely popular in Brazil, and continue to show positive rates of growth. According to analyses by Canadean, in 2011 the milk mix drinks category generated a volume of 460 million litres in Brazil – that is an increase of more than 12 per cent over the previous year. And the future looks bright as well: over the next four years, we are anticipating further growth of 10.5 per cent per annum. Chocolate milk mix drinks are especially popular in Brazil – at 90 per cent, chocolate-flavoured products make up the bulk of sales in the milk mix drinks segment. Eighty per cent of sales are in small carton packs.

There is no need to look far for the roots of the Brazilians' fondness for chocolate drinks. The cocoa plant originated in Central and South America where, tradition has it, drinks were being made from the dried and ground beans of the cocoa tree mixed with water as long as 3,000 years ago. Nowadays, most chocolate drinks are made with milk rather than water.

Toddynho – popular classic now in combiblocSmall
PepsiCo is one of Brazil's market leaders in the milk mix segment and celebrating success with UHT milk mix drinks. The Toddynho chocolate drink has been available in Brazil since 1982, and Toddynho-brand products have joined the ranks of popular classics. The drinks created a revolution in the Brazilian market, kick-starting the entry to a new product segment: ready-to-drink UHT milk mix drinks. The success of the chocolate variety soon prompted the company to launch more flavours: the variants light, Napolitano (chocolate with strawberry and vanilla) and Brigadeiro (a traditional Brazilian chocolate speciality) followed.