ABA Beverages, the leading player in the bottling industry in the State of Qatar, announced on August 29, 2023 that it had been honored with the prestigious Gold – Quality Excellence Award from PepsiCo International for the 2022 Annual Quality Excellence Awards. The award was in recognition of ABA Beverages’ achievement in scoring at the highest levels on the international Quality and Food Safety scale.
Receiving the Gold – Quality Excellence Award, the General Manager of ABA Beverages, Mr. Marc Karam, together with other members of the management team, explained that this achievement was the result of a sustained and passionate commitment to ambitious quality and food safety targets the team set themselves over the last few years.
“ABA Beverages has recently been achieving Silver Rating Award, almost every year. This is a significant achievement for a 43-year-old plant. We earned the Gold Standard Award after 18 years waiting, since ABA Beverages won it last. I have no doubt that this winning team is able to sustain the Blue Rating in Quality and Food Safety in the coming year as well, and by doing so, earning the Gold Standard Award again,” noted Mr. Karam.
Every year, PepsiCo International gives special recognition to bottling companies worldwide that have impeccable ratings on Quality and Food Safety Standards. In this process, Pepsi picks up market samples, every month, through a third party certified operator. These samples are tested at Pepsi labs in Ireland and China. Based on the test results versus standard requirements, Pepsi then categorizes the results with color codes; the highest being Blue, followed by Green, Orange and Red. Blue has the highest rating parameter of 100%, which ABA Beverages attained in 2022.
Apart from this, the bottling companies undergo impromptu Quality and Food Safety Audit, conducted by AIB International, a third party Audit Company appointed by PepsiCo International. Out of a maximum score of 1,000 points, ABA Beverages scored 925 points in the same year to win the Gold – Quality Excellence Award.
The Gold – Quality Excellence Award is only awarded to companies that have excelled in both the AIB Audit and achieved the BLUE code in the monthly sampling. Other ratings include the Silver and Bronze awards. For perspective, out of a total of more than 260 bottling sites in Africa, Middle East and Asia, only 20 were awarded the Gold distinction for year 2022.
ABA Beverages will continue to strive for excellence and ensure the highest quality production in its state-of-the-art factory whilst sparing no effort to achieve the environmental sustainability goals and contributing to the circular economy in Qatar.