Cobra Beer, the eponymous lager beer company founded by Karan Bilimoria, a city lad now a Lord of the British parliament, is aggressively pushing into southern India by tying up with breweries in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Cobra Beer India, the Indian subsidiary of Cobra Beer of the United Kingdom, has signed a brewing agreement with Artos brewery in Vijayawada district and with the Khodays brewery in Bangalore, Lord Bilimoria, 46, who went to Hyderabad Public School and Osmania University before going to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom for a degree in law, told this newspaper on Friday.
Lord Bilimoria, who spe-nds a month in India every year along with his South African-born wife and four children, said with the tie-up with the Artos brewery, Cobra Beer would be able to service the Andhra Pradesh market regularly. Earlier, the company had to truck in the beer from Mah-arashtra, which entailed a lead-time of five days.
According to Lord Bilimoria, who is also CEO of Cobra Beer, the company had also launched a strong lager in Andhra Pradesh, called King Cobra.
"The four states in southern India and Maharashtra account for 50 per cent of the total beer sales in India, so we are aggressively expanding in southern India," he said. The tie-up with Khodays in Bangalore ensured a reliable supply of Cobra Beer to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, he said.
"The past 18 months, from November 2006, have seen a rapid growth in Cobra Beer consumption in India. At that time, we had sales of 20,000 cases, whi-ch have now grown to four lakh cases. During the past 18 months, Cobra Beer has signed brewing agreements with eight breweries in different states, and bought one brewery in Bihar," he said.
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