Unusually high temperatures—4-8°C above normal—since early February are forcing companies, from beverage and ice cream makers to AC manufacturers, to reassess demand forecasting and supply planning.
While seasonal demand remains critical, longer summers are pushing companies to stay relevant year-round.
For instance, summer accounts for 60% of revenues for India’s largest listed ice cream maker, Kwality Wall’s (India), its deputy managing director and executive director Chitrank Goel told Mint in an earlier interaction. LG Electronics, the largest consumer electronics brand in India, makes around 28% of its annual revenues in the January-March quarter.
Awry predictions, then, can lead to a production-demand mismatch. “[Weather] models are also not able to capture the micro weather patterns,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president, meteorology and climate change at Skymet Weather Services, adding it has become more difficult since 30-40 years ago. This leads to chaos at companies that "need predictions at least 48-72 hours in advance to make changes" to their schedules.
Most ice cream companies, for instance, traditionally dispatch large inventories immediately after Holi, which marks the end of winter and the beginning of peak consumption. “In small towns and villages, if a shopkeeper has two freezers, the person switches the second freezer on after the festival,” said Ankit Chona, founder and managing director of Hocco Industries, makers of an eponymous ice cream brand. “Holi is a time when people have a mindset switch.”
Manufacturers typically schedule plant maintenance between December and February to ramp up for the season. But unpredictable weather is increasingly disrupting these cycles, Chona added.
“Given the significant investments in inventory and cold storage across distributors and retailers, climate volatility can create pressure across the supply chain,” Srideep Kesavan, CEO of Heritage Foods Ltd told Mint.
Players like Kwality Walls are positioning themselves as “snacking” firms to ensure year-round visibility.
Diversified but climate surprises
Even industry heavyweights have been affected as weather plays truant. Unexpected rains in the second quarter of 2025-26, for instance, hurt beverage sales. “The only dampening part… has been the rains, which are totally unpredictable and were much heavier than they have normally been in this quarter in the past,” Ravi Jaipuria, chairman of PepsiCo bottler Varun Beverages had said then on an investor call.
Diversification, then, has become the primary goal even for the beverage industry. PepsiCo has expanded into products such as Sting, Gatorade, Tropicana, Adrenaline Rush, and Slice to smooth seasonal demand. Coca-Cola had introduced brands such as Minute Maid and Maaza earlier.
“Our occasion-based price-pack architecture enables us to address a wide spectrum of consumption needs across price points and occasions,” said Nitin Bhandari, vice president and general manager, beverages, PepsiCo India & South Asia.
Reliance Retail, while promoting Campa Cola as its flagship beverage brand, has also acquired labels including RasKik, Sun Crush, Yeah!, Spinner, Shunya, and Sosyo that can be marketed in other seasons, too.
On the flip side, early heatwaves this year have been a major boost for beverage companies.
An unusually hot February and March "has provided a significant tailwind to the beverage industry and we are observing a healthy acceleration in consumer demand across our portfolio,” said Paritosh Ladhani, managing director, SLMG Beverages, a large bottler of Coca-Cola in India. SLMG on 1 March said it would spend ₹1,200 crore on a bottling plant in Buxar, Bihar, its largest in South Asia.
Planning becomes tougher
Weather changes are complicating demand planning for cooling appliances, too.
Traditionally, makers of air conditioners and coolers, would plan production ahead of seasonal patterns, said Jasraaj S. Kalra, managing director, Noble Group, an Indian supplier to original equipment manufacturer in electronics and durables. But extreme heatwaves, delayed summers, and early rains have disrupted demand cycles in recent years, he added.
Climate volatility is also pushing companies to rethink product positioning. Large temperature swings have increased demand for hot-and-cold air conditioners, particularly in northern India.
Meanwhile, manufacturers are grappling with rising costs. Higher copper prices, a weaker rupee, new energy-efficiency norms, and increased freight costs have forced companies such as Daikin, Voltas, Blue Star, LG, Haier, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to raise prices.
Companies have had to pull up production cycles to prepare for early summer demand, said Ashutosh Gupta, director of sales and marketing at Summercool Home Appliances, an affordable consumer durables brand. Increased costs may see appliance prices rising 30-40% this season, he added.
Policy changes have added another layer of uncertainty this year. According to JM Financial, the government’s new rules on prioritizing gas for household and essential sectors could increase the risk of fuel shortages for industrial users. AC manufacturers, who rely on LPG and PNG for flame-brazing copper components, could get impacted.
To manage volatility, companies are shifting towards flexible production models instead of building large seasonal inventories. “We reduce the inventory risk by implementing flexible production schedules instead of maintaining the traditional practice of building up large seasonal inventories," Gupta said, adding Summercool uses distributor and retailer sales data to track demand and calibrate production.
Looking ahead, companies are watching for a potential El Niño event later this year, which historically brings higher-than-average temperatures and severe heatwaves across India. This adds yet another dimension to the climate-business equation: rural demand could face pressure if El Niño leads to lower rainfall during harvest months and put pressure on crops.