Baltic Bottling Plant

"The Russian joint venture went ahead in 1993 under the name Baltic Bottling Plant. Magnus was in charge of setting up the factory and I was in charge of marketing. We made two reconnaissance trips. We took a look, came back and said: ‘It’s a bizarre place but let’s see what we can do.’ We had heard that Russians wanted something colourful so we produced a batch of pink lemonade and shipped a couple of containers to Russia. I toured the shops, carrying out market research and trying to gauge the demand for soft drinks. But Russia was pretty chaotic at that time. I came across empty supermarket shelves and long lines of people queuing for food; the shops smelled and the service was dreadful. But I realised that we could make something there. Even though we had old products, they could still work. That is what Russia became in those years: a dumping ground for old stock."

"The Russian joint venture went ahead in 1993 under the name Baltic Bottling Plant. Magnus was in charge of setting up the factory and I was in charge of marketing. We made two reconnaissance trips. We took a look, came back and said: ‘It’s a bizarre place but let’s see what we can do.’ We had heard that Russians wanted something colourful so we produced a batch of pink lemonade and shipped a couple of containers to Russia. I toured the shops, carrying out market research and trying to gauge the demand for soft drinks. But Russia was pretty chaotic at that time. I came across empty supermarket shelves and long lines of people queuing for food; the shops smelled and the service was dreadful. But I realised that we could make something there. Even though we had old products, they could still work. That is what Russia became in those years: a dumping ground for old stock."