Industrial Visit to Pepsi Co.

On 7th of October 2023, the Department of Business Administration of The Bhawanipur Education Society College conducted an Industrial Visit to the Pepsi Company franchisee factory (Varun Beverages Pvt.Ltd – the flagship of the RKG group) located at Kamalgazi, West Bengal. The students of BBA (Hons.), Third Year batch, were taken for the Visit, organised by the head of Department Coordinator Professor Dr. Tridib Sengupta. Though it was officially an industrial visit, the true purpose was much deeper, not only did we visit the factory, we also learnt about the processing and various packaging of products.

PepsiCo entered India in 1989 and has grown to become one of the largest MNC food and beverage businesses in India.

Gurgaon is home to Varun Beverages’ corporate headquarters. There are 11 of them located both inside and outside of India, with Kolkata being the third-largest. Others can be found in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Rajasthan, Goa, Noida, and Guwahati. For beverage producers Pepsi Co., Varun Beverages Limited offers bottling and distribution services.

The company Pepsi manufactures and advertises carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, as well as packaged drinking water. The company’s beverage portfolio also includes 7UP, Miranda, and Mountain Dew brands; reduced calorie drinks like Diet Pepsi; hydrating and nutritional beverages like Aquafina drinking water; and juice-based drinks including Tropicana, Slice, and Twister. The company also sells local soda brands.

A group of 47 HR and Finance DSE students including a reporter and a photographer visited the site. The students were accompanied by the class coordinators Prof. Paridhi Agarwal and Pritha Chandra started the trip at 10:30 am. in the morning, and reached the site at around 11:30 am. Breakfast was provided on the way to the site.

Once we reached the company’s staff greeted us warmly and introduced us to the senior Plant Manager, Assistant Manager, HR heads, and others. The manufacturing site was well-kept and clean. They provided us with small refreshments, as well as Pepsi, Sprite, and Miranda. They showed us a presentation which included all aspects of the organization such as HR, Finance, and Marketing, and the other history about the company. We were made to wear caps on our head for safety and hygiene purposes before entering the production unit. We learned more about the Pepsi Co.as we explored the production site. Pepsi Co.’s soft drink brands include Mountain Dew, 7UP, Pepsi, Slice, and Nimbooz. Varun drinks has a sales turnover of roughly 600 crores.

The Pepsi Co. sources its ingredients from 12 nations throughout the world, one of which being India. Varun Beverages’ raw materials are sourced from China. Pepsi Co. is currently ranked second in India in terms of soft drink market share. 90% of the soft drink’s contents are water, with the rest being sugar syrup and other ingredients. The unit has 6 production lines each for carbonated, non-carbonated, pet bottle and aquafine filling. Every line has different temperature requirements hence different machines for cleaning, filling, labelling, date coding, seal checking and stacking.

Student interaction with the staff from the various departments provided a holistic view of the factory. The visit was quite interactive and informative as they got to know about the various process that go on in a beverage production. It was an enthralling experience for the students as it will help them to get a foothold in the corporate world. A token of appreciation in the form of a Memento was presented to the Factory Manager __. Altogether, the visit to the Pepsi Co. Kamalgazi was a remarkable experience.

Thus, ‘Industrial Visits’ are the most practical approach towards learning through interaction, working practices, etc. and hence give a perfect reality check to the students.