African Ethiopia And Their Soft Drinks

What is a soft drink?

Soft drinks are typically carbonated water with added flavoring and sweetening. This sweeting can be either artificial or natural. The sweetener can be anything from sugar, fruit juice, and corn syrup or sugar substitutions. It can also be a combination of these. Many soft drinks also contain caffeine. Soft drinks may have a very small alcohol content, it has to come of a total of 0.5% of the drinks volume or else it is considered alcoholic ‘hard’ drinks.

Soft drinks can be served at any temperature; from chilled with ice cubes to room temperature. Occasionally they are even served warm. They are also available in a variety of bottles and cans, all different sizes filled with different quantities of the drink. There is no shortage of availability in these drinks. They can be found at restaurants, cinemas, shopping markets, and even petrol stations.

To add to their variety, there are several blends served in restaurants or concocted in households. They use recipes that mix soft drinks with fruit juices, sometimes they even add ice cream to give it an interesting twist.

Types found in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, Ambo and Mirinda are soft drinks made by the Ethiopians and they are found in most restaurants in the country. Mirinda is a soda made with locally grown sugar cane, its colored orange. Ambo is a carbonated mineral water, bottled and sold in a small town also known as Ambo.

Expansion of their production

The young Ethiopian population is quite large in number, almost 90 million people, and their demand for soft drinks is increasing. To cater to this increase soft drink companies have begun to set up new factories. The have also replaced old, obsolete machinery with new and improved technology which has substantially increased their production capacity.

There are certain international and local soft drink companies, which have begun to expand their production by installing new production lines. The increase in plants helps not only to increase the growth rate in their production but also cut the travel time it takes to take the drinks to other areas.

Commercializing of soft drinks

They are a variety of ways for the company’s marketing departments to test soft drinks popularity, and increase their sales. They may set up stalls outside popular super markets, gaming areas, hotels and even on road sides, offering samples and structured questionnaires.

Soft drinks seem to be increasingly popular worldwide and Ethiopia is no exception.