This Brand's Functional Juice is a Healthy, Guilt-Free Alternative to Coffee
This Brand's Functional Juice is a Healthy, Guilt-Free Alternative to Coffee

Poshn is a brand of functional juices, wherein we blend fruits and herbs together, to make the consumers either energized or relaxed. Poshn’s CEO and Founder, Rahul Kakkad, is a three times national swimming champion and has a degree in entrepreneurship and engineering. His first venture was a brand of tyres - Ultramile. During his work at Ultramile, he realised he had become lactose intolerant and he could no longer have coffee. At the same time, he realised that people were doing all sorts of unhealthy things to get a good night’s sleep. Rahul, then, started researching on this topic and 18 months later Poshn was born.

In an interview with Restaurant India, CEO and Founder, Rahul Kakkad shares how Poshn’s concept is different from other juice players in the industry segment.

How Poshn is different from other juice players in the industry?

We have used various different fruits and herbs that have natural properties geared towards either energy or relaxation, along with a whole lot of nutrition! For example, we use various refreshing tropical fruits with green tea and ginseng for energy, while we use all sorts of anti-oxidant rich and high melatonin fruits such as cherries and berries and add chamomile to feel relaxed. We use stevia for sweetness in both, thereby, avoiding any artificial sugars.

These delicious juices are also all-natural, have no added sugar and are also extremely low on calories, which is why we call it a functional super juice!

For example, our energy juice Recharge is 60 calories, while homemade lemonade would be around 120 calories. 

Currently, no one is really focusing on energy and relaxation in a healthy all-natural juice format in the market, and that’s what makes us different.

Also Read: This Brand's Cold Extracted Drinks Are As Good As Fresh Fruits

We are giving the market a healthy guilt-free alternative to coffee and other unhealthy energy drinks, and a whole new healthy way to relax and de-stress.

By far, which super juice is people's favourite or top-selling? What is your favourite from Poshn's juices?

Currently, with whatever of the market we have explored so far, our relaxation variant has surely been the crowd favourite since it is the sweeter juice and gives you great sleep too!

I personally use the energy variant a lot more since I am constantly on the run and I just love the natural, refreshing kick it delivers, without any jittery feeling like the other energy drinks in the market.

Where do you source your ingredients from?

We source our ingredients from all different parts of the world. Our fruits originate from Israel, our stevia comes from Germany, and our herbs come from various parts of the world too. The international touch can be noticed once a person has the products. Our taste truly speaks for itself, which is why people are coming back for more.

What are your expansion plans with Poshn? How do you see the tier I and tier II cities?

Rahul Kakkad, CEO and Founder of Poshn

Currently, we are going slow with retail, and taking one market at a time. We are presently available in stores like Nature’s Basket, Foodhall, and most chemists and premium general stores. While online, we are on board with almost all the major e-commerce sites and also have our own e-commerce website where we offer a subscriber model pan India. We plan to enter new markets soon, but our focus initially will be on tier 1 cities only. We also plan to launch new variants which we are currently doing research on.

How much the Indian market is aware of the super juices?

I think, at present, the Indian market is not much aware of the concept of functional juices; especially the concept of fruits + herbs. This marks one of the biggest challenges for us – to educate consumers.

Your contribution towards HoReCa with Poshn.

Since we have just launched in the market in September 2018, we are still very new in the game and have not yet entered the HoReCa markets. We have had talks with a few hotel chains, cafes, caterers and airlines, but have not started any business in these areas yet. We recently signed up with RELAY! for selling at airports in Mumbai, Goa, Delhi and Bengaluru, and we’re pretty excited about that.  

Your key marketing strategies to reach out to the target consumers?

Well, I really wish I knew the right answer to this question. But from what I can say is, that we are focusing all our marketing efforts in the sampling of the products at the right avenues. Currently, most intercollegiate sports tournaments, corporate offices, private sports leagues and marathons are all the places where we are doing most of our sampling, in order to not only get people to try Poshn but also use it for what it is made for. We are trying to associate our brand with anything that stands for health and wellness and keeping our focus to that only.

We also do a lot of events, in-store sampling and influencer campaigns to help spread the word.

How do you maintain the health and nutrition value of your products?

Quality of our products has been the utmost concern for our company. We are only working with the best suppliers for every single ingredient, and not trying to cut any corners there. Since we have to import the fruits as concentrates and the herbs as natural extracts, we have access to all the lab reports beforehand. We also have various quality checks during our production process to make sure there is no variance in the product in either taste or quality.

What are the key challenges of being in the juice segment?

Well, there are various challenges to being in the juice sector. The Indian juice market, in general, is not that huge and is majorly skewed towards the cheaper typical juices and tetra packs. It is anyway a big challenge to get into most stores, it is an even bigger challenge to demand shelf space in the chillers, this makes retail very challenging. But so far, I think we are doing a really good job.

We were recently awarded the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for the Most Admired Startup of the Year. And our confidence has grown by leaps and bounds since then.

 
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