Latin American Economy & Business - August 2015 (ISSN 1741-7430)

Big Cola makes African move: Big Cola, the soft-drink brand controlled by Peru’s Aje Group, is initiating operations in Africa, where it has opened two bottling plants, one in Nigeria and the other in Egypt. Although less than 30 years old (the company was set-up in Ayacucho in 1988), Big Cola is now a significant player in the global market. According to the UK-based Euromonitor, it is ranked number 10 by revenue among global soft drinks producers, with a 1% market share (Coca-Cola is number 1, with a 20% global market share, while Pepsi takes 9.7%). Annual sales are reported at US$1.2bn, and Big Cola is present in 20 countries around the world, particularly in Asia: this year it became the top soft drink by sales volume in Indonesia. The company originally started as a family business run by Eduardo Añaños and Mirtha Jerí, a couple with five children, who at the height of the violence and scarcities sparked by the Sendero Luminoso guerrilla movement realised that there was a gap in the market – the big bottling companies had stopped supplying the region. As a result of some experimentation they created a new carbonated soft drink with citric overtones that was initially marketed as Kola Real. Sales grew strongly in Peru, prompting international expansion starting in Venezuela in 1999 (when the name was changed to Big Cola), Ecuador in 2000 and the fiercely competitive Mexican market in 2002.