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Nongfu Spring to lift drinks prices Thursday



Nongfu Spring, a leading beverage producer, Wednesday confirmed to the Global Times that the company would lift factory prices on three product lines starting Thursday.To get more news about Nongfuspring, you can visit en.nongfuspring official website.

Prices of bottled water, Nongfu's Orchard beverage and the Screaming sports drink will be raised 5 percent, Cai Zi, manager of the media department of Zhejiang-based Yangshengtang, Nongfu Spring's parent company, said in an email reply Wednesday.

The company is the third beverages giant to lift its prices in a month after Yanjing Beer and Coca-Cola, and experts predict more beverage players will follow due to soaring raw materials costs.

The hike is due to the rising cost of supplies such as sugar and diesel, although the company has tried to absorb cost pressure from 2009, Cai said.Figures from the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange Wednesday put sugar futures at 5,584 yuan ($817.93) per ton, compared with a price of 3,532 yuan ($517.36) on June 21, 2007.

Since last year, prices of sugar, diesel and PET, used to make plastic bottles, have increased by 37 percent, 40 percent and 27 percent respectively, International Finance News reported Monday.Moreover, Cai added the company's production facilities are located near water resources, far from cities, adding to the transportation costs to bring the finished product to market.

"The logistics cost is double that of peers which produce bottled water from city's tap water, and build factories around the cities," Cai said.Normally, one 550 milliliter bottle of Nongfu Spring water is sold for around 1.1 yuan ($0.16). In 2009, the company witnessed a total sales income of more than 5 billion yuan ($732.39), according to a report from Nanfang Metropolis Daily January 9.

In September 2008, Nongfu Spring said its bottled water market share was around 11-13 percent, the 21st Century Business Herald reported.It is not the first time a beverage producer has lifted prices recently. A bottling company for Coca-Cola's Hangzhou factory Wednesday reported that from next month, factory prices will be raised by 5 percent on average for products including bottled water, Coca-Cola, Funda, Sprite and Minute Maid.