Only an estimated 50% of traders across the State have completely stopped selling soft drinks from the house of Pepsi and Coca Cola. The rest are in a ‘wait and watch’ mode.
In January, traders associations in Tamil Nadu decided not to sell soft drinks manufactured by MNCs and embrace home-grown brands starting March 1. They cited two major reasons — health issues and multinational firms exploiting groundwater resources.
Of the 23 shops that The Hindu visited in places including Pondy Bazaar, R.A Puram, Thyagarya Nagar, Guindy, Triplicane, Chintadripet, Egmore and Greames Road, 20 shops did have Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Calls made to grocery shops in Ambattur, Anna Nagar, Porur, Tambaram also revealed that most of them did have these brands in their shops.
“We still have 20% stock of soft drinks that we purchased in December. Once we clear the stock, we will take a call on what to do,” said Arunachalam, proprietor of a small grocery store at Porur.
S. Raja, Proprietor of Sri Murugan Departmental Store at R.A. Puram, said, “Post the jallikattu issue, we stopped purchasing these two brands and even consumers are not enquiring about Pepsi or Coca-Cola. We are now witnessing a spurt in Bovonto sales,” he added. This store sold 15-18 cases (24 bottles each) of Pepsi and Coca-Cola per week.
Many shops in Madurai also had ample stock of these brands. Also, about 10,000 shops affiliated to the Coimbatore unit of the Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangangalin Peravai (federation of traders' associations) have stopped selling aerated drinks of multinational companies. A majority of the colleges in Coimbatore have stopped sales of the drinks in their canteens.
Most of the traders were also worried about the infrastructure facilities if they ban these two brands.
No response from firms
Both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola did not respond to an email query that was sent but the India Beverage Association (IBA) spoke on behalf of them.
According to the association, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo India play a critical role in improving the livelihood of over 2 lakh retailers, who earn more than ₹400 crore in income by selling products manufactured by the two companies.
“IBA hopes that good sense will prevail and that consumers will continue to have the right to exercise their choice in Tamil Nadu,” the association said.
T. Vellaiyan, president of Tamil Nadu Traders Federation, said, “We have more than 6,000 associations across Tamil Nadu. If they don’t take off these products off shelves we will remove them from our association. We have always stood by traders during crisis and we hope they support us now.”
When asked about the infrastructure facilities for the traders, A. M. Vikrama Raja, president, Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangangalin Peramaippu (TNVSP), said, “Some home-grown brands have also offered to give refrigerators.”
(With inputs from Karthik Madhavan in Coimbatore and L. Srikrishna in Madurai)
