Challenging the rules of the game

Lahori Zeera Needs To Amp Up Production To Put Up A Decent Fight Against Legacy Brands

- CHRISTINA MONIZ

WHAT'S COMMON BETWEEN Saiyaara and Lahori Zeera? Nothing much except that both decided to keep things simple and eschewed marketing brouhaha in their early days but were declared sleeper hits.

"The product has gained mass acceptance because we've turned a popular ethnic flavour into a carbonated drink and bottled it," Nikhil Doda, co-founder & COO, Lahori Zeera, says, adding that the company's strategy has been fairly simple. The seven-year-old brand launched by three cousins in Punjab has seen impressive growth, closing the last fiscal with revenues of ₹535 crore. The beverage startup secured primary funding of ₹200 crore from Motilal Oswal Wealth this May, marking a threefold increase in its valuation to ₹2,800 crore.

Experts note that a major game changer has been the ₹10 price point for a 160 ml bottle of the drink, something that even Reliance's Campa Cola leveraged well. "The company had the benefit of a price point that the big cola players had ignored. Coke and Pepsi in their effort to shore up volumes, had vacated the ₹10 price point," says Naresh Gupta, co-founder & CSO, Bang In The Middle.