Version 1: Coca-Cola bottler SLMG Beverages aims for Rs 20,000 crore turnover and an IPO

The Lucknow company that fills Coca-Cola's bottles in UP and Bihar plans to more than double its sales in five years and list on the stock market.

Picture a machine that fills about 583 bottles of cola every single second. That is roughly what one company in Lucknow can do across its plants today. Now it wants to grow much bigger.

On 21 October 2026, SLMG Beverages, Coca-Cola's second largest bottler in India, said it aims for a turnover of Rs 20,000 crore within five years. Its Joint Managing Director, Paritosh Ladhani, told the news agency PTI that the company will "definitely be listed by then". The Economic Times report puts the listing three to four years away.

These are plans, not results. But they tell a fun story about how the cold drink in a small town shop actually gets there.

Wait, does Coca-Cola not make its own drinks?

Not quite, at least not most of the bottles. The Coca-Cola Company works like a recipe owner. It makes the concentrates and syrups and runs the marketing. Then local bottling partners take over. They mix the drink, fill the bottles, pack them and work with local shops to get them to people.

Think of a famous chai masala brand. The brand makes the secret masala. A local tea stall buys it, boils the chai, pours it into cups and sells it to you. The bottler is like that tea stall, only giant.

Coca-Cola says it has more than 200 bottling partners and over 950 production plants worldwide. It also says it does not own, manage or control most of these local bottlers. They are separate companies with their own owners.

Four steps: Coca-Cola makes the syrup, the bottler fills and packs drinks, trucks carry them to shops, and a buyer picks up a cold drink — The bottler is the middle of the chain, between the recipe and the shop.

Who is SLMG Beverages?

SLMG is based in Lucknow and is the main drinks business of the Ladhani Group, which has worked with Coca-Cola for over three decades. It runs eight plants in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They make fizzy drinks, fruit juices, energy drinks and packaged water.

The company holds Coca-Cola's bottling rights for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and parts of Madhya Pradesh. A bottling right is a bit like a franchise: permission to make and sell the brand's drinks in a set area.

Its reach is wide. It works with more than 3,000 distributors and over 30 warehouses, reaching more than 1.5 million shops. In an interview with BW Retail World, Ladhani listed drinks it handles, such as Diet Coke, Sprite Zero, the jeera drink Rimzim and Schweppes.

What is turnover, and how big is the jump?

Turnover is all the money a company brings in from selling things, before it pays any bills. If a lemonade stall sells 100 glasses at Rs 10 each, its turnover is Rs 1,000, even if lemons and sugar cost Rs 600.

SLMG's gross turnover today is around Rs 9,000 crore. It expects to cross Rs 10,000 crore next year and more than Rs 15,000 crore in three years. The big target is Rs 20,000 crore in five years.

Going from about Rs 9,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore means a bit more than doubling. The company says it grew about 25% in FY26, the money year that ended in March 2026. It also says its sales grew more than 20% a year, on average, over the last four years.

For comparison, SLMG said it closed calendar 2025 with revenue above Rs 8,000 crore.

Bar chart of SLMG turnover: about Rs 9,000 crore now, over Rs 10,000 crore next year, over Rs 15,000 crore in three years and Rs 20,000 crore in five years — Each step up is a target the company has shared, not money already earned.

Where will all those extra bottles come from?

More sales need more machines. SLMG has already put around Rs 1,200 crore into a plant at Buxar in Bihar. Work has started on a plant in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, which will cost about Rs 1,000 crore. It has also bought land in central and western Uttar Pradesh, and a second Bihar plant will come after 2027.

The Buxar plant opened earlier this year. It sits on about 65 acres, has seven high speed lines and can fill over 5,000 bottles a minute. It is the company's first Coca-Cola bottling unit in Bihar.

Watch on YouTube

Right now, SLMG can fill around 35,000 bottles a minute across its plants. It plans to add another 10,000 a minute in five years, which would take it to about 45,000. Over ten years, Ladhani hopes to reach 1 lakh bottles a minute. That is nearly three times today's speed.

Before and after: 35,000 bottles a minute today, and a plan for 45,000 a minute in five years — Faster lines mean more bottles ready for summer and festive rush.

Why spend money on fridges?

A warm cola is hard to sell. So SLMG also spends on coolers, the glass door fridges in shops. It spent more than Rs 60 to 70 crore on chilling equipment last year. With a plan to help shopkeepers pay for them, the total should cross Rs 100 crore.

The aim is simple. If a kirana shop in a small town has a cold fridge full of drinks, more people buy one on a hot afternoon. The company says it sees lots of room to grow in smaller towns and villages.

What is an IPO, and why wait?

An IPO, or initial public offering, is when a private company sells its shares to the public for the first time. After that, anyone can buy and sell those shares on a stock exchange. This is called being listed.

Imagine a samosa stall run by one family. To open five more stalls, the family lets hundreds of people buy small pieces of the business. Those people now share in its profits and losses.

SLMG is in no rush. Earlier, Ladhani told BW Retail World the company was not prepared for an IPO yet, because it needs a lot of preparation. He also said that a growing company's value tends to rise each year it waits. Now the plan is to list within five years.

The bigger goal

SLMG says it is among the world's top 15 Coca-Cola bottlers. It wants to enter the top 10 within five years and the top five within a decade. It is also looking at chances outside India.

Here is a peek inside a Coca-Cola bottling plant in India, run by a different bottler, to see how the lines work.

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So the next time someone picks up a cold Coca-Cola drink from a shop fridge in Lucknow or Patna, the bottle may well have been filled by this Lucknow company, which holds the bottling rights in those states.

As it was first published

Coca-Cola bottler SLMG Beverages aims for Rs 20,000 crore turnover and an IPO