How functional drink is changing the beverages biz
How functional drink is changing the beverages biz

Tell us something about the brand.

We started the brand in December 2014 and it’s been almost two and a half years since it is functional. We spent almost two years on product development. After developing the product, our focus was to create a category rather than entering into a category which is already there. The potential was to differentiate our products from the established categories. So we wanted to be strongly differentiating leadership category. The green tea coolers include a combination of green tea, blended with the flavour of natural fruits, acerola and vitamin C that are available in various flavours- Peach, Green Mango, Lavender and Mint. The herb coolers combine herbs, fruit flavours, inulin, vitamins and minerals and are available in two variants- Calm and Curious. We are the first company in India to introduce a drink with inulin which improves health and also works as a food additive. We have introduced third drink as Natural caffeine drink in which we have decreased the amount of caffeine and caffeine is also extracted naturally. Green tea coolers and Herb coolers are in PET bottles. We have also introduced What !f?. This concept says the feel of bringing green tea and herbs in a PET bottle like if they could be bought in a form of drink then why not in PET bottles.

Are you retailing through Nature’s Basket only?

We’re retailing through almost 450 leading general stores of Mumbai.

What was the whole idea of coming up with this beverage thing?

I realised in 2013 that every industry in abroad is providing juices or fortified drinks but when I returned back to India in 2016, there was no market for beverages which led me to made an entry to this particular field. Before starting I researched and studied the whole market segment; I wanted to explore if somebody has started this thing in India or not!

How much you have put into to come up with this brand?

We have spent around 50 lacs to 1 crore in product development market, research, regulatory and approvals in the last two years. Sipwise is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Scientific Remedies Private Ltd. owned by my father.

How are you going to market your brand?

The idea was to bring product truth and emotional truth together. We are trying to bring health with taste factor for the consumers. We are also designing a vending machine which will offer drinks to the customers. Apart from that, we are associated with many campaigns. We’re stalking various market programs at best locations from where we could get feedbacks. In this saturated market, our focus is to be unique and that would market the product.

Who are you targeting as a customer?

What !f ? already targeted 20 to 40 age group people; somebody who is well aware, experienced or who just want to try out the new thing. For 1947 we are targeting the teenage group but probably you can also link up 20 to 30 age group people.

Where do you get all these natural ingredients and herbs?

We import a lot of our ingredients because we use ingredients which other beverage companies don’t. For example, our flavours are also imported from a special technology called rod flavours; these flavours change your palates for a longer period of time that is why we import a larger quantity of ingredients. We are the first company to introduce these flavours and production takes place in Indore.

What is the shelf life of this product?

Shelf life for 1947 is two years and other two products are 9 months.

What are your expansion plans?

We’re planning to expand in Pune, Mumbai. Then we’re looking forward to be in Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Chennai. But before that we want to cover at least two years of operation here in Mumbai.

 
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