The ethnic beverages market in India has seen strong growth in recent years on the back of growing demand from health-conscious consumers. To make the most of the category upswing, Mumbai-based beverage company Xotik Frujus has revamped its popular jeera-based drink Jeeru, tweaked its composition with an apple juice base and rebranded it J. Anjana Ghosh, CEO at Xotik Frujus says with this revamp, the company is looking to create a clear niche for itself in the country’s Rs 50,000-crore carbonated soft drinks market.
The company is said to have closed FY 2023 with a turnover of Rs 150 crore, up from Rs 100 crore last fiscal. J contributes close to 80% of its revenues and is the leader in the Rs 700-crore ethnic drinks market. “With our new formulation and positioning as a strong masala soda, our ambition is to widen J’s footprint across India. We expect to take the company’s turnover to Rs 500 crore in the next five years,” says Ghosh, who was formerly Bisleri’s director of marketing and business development.
Drinks with local flavours are a major growth area for global, national and regional players, observes Rajat Wahi, partner, Deloitte India. He notes, “Masala and even jeera-based drinks are just two of the popular flavours in traditional Indian cuisine. As demand for new or innovative flavours increases, these drinks have the potential to become mainstream along with seasonal fruit flavours and immunity boosting drinks.”
Unfortunately, the company had to exit the jeera-based beverage space because of copycat brands, a problem Ghosh had to address even in Bisleri. Second, jeera drinks are viewed as digestive drinks, reducing its frequency of consumption. In its masala soda avatar, J will likely be consumed more often.
Wooing GenZ is the biggest task at hand. Ghosh says the new brand name, imagery, logo and the flavour have all been tweaked keeping this consumer group in mind. “The youth today are looking for options beyond the usual cola, lemon and orange beverages. Consider the kind of changes we’re seeing even in the alcohol category. Young consumers in urban markets are gravitating towards craft beer brands ,” she points out.
Given the target, the marketing strategy for J will be largely digital-led, with a budget of around Rs 20 crore; there will be on-ground activation, sampling and outdoor campaigns. Once the brand revamp is able to create some excitement, the company will promote other offerings in the Xotik portfolio, which include non-carbonated fruit-flavoured drinks.
Another big task for the brand is to increase production capacity. Till about a year back, J’s production was restricted to just one plant in Gujarat, which trammeled distribution. Since August 2022, the company has increased capacity by adding four more plants — two in the north, one in the east and one in the south. The brand will add five to six plants every year to strengthen its distribution.
“We reach 2 lakh retail outlets currently and our plan is to double our reach in general trade this fiscal. We see around 60% of our business coming from smaller, tier-II-and-beyond markets. We want to change that. This year we will penetrate deeper into key urban markets before tackling the tier-II and beyond markets,” says Ghosh, adding that brands are built in the big cities — that is also where the influencers are.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook