Innovative flavour helping us grow in juices market: Tejinder Khurana

After steering cola MNCs – Coca-Cola and Pepsi – in many tricky markets, Tejinder Khurana, founder and CEO of Blue Planet Beverages Private Limited, is now busy launching his own brand, Zestee, in crowded soft drinks and fruit juices market. He tells Praveena Sharma his brand is filling up the “vacuum” at the Rs 20-25-price segment, which meets the demand for high-quality fruit drinks and juices.

There are already several indigenous players, which are fast usurping the growing traditional juices market. Have you entered the beverage market a wee bit late?

The pertinent point is, are you over-crowding the market or adding value through differentiation and thereby furthering good competition.

How do you plan to catch up with them?

One of our important strategic differentiation pillars is to have high quality, modern and great tasting products. Additionally, we have a medley of variants, which are a combination of massy and innovative flavours. Thus, on one side, massy is helping us drive the distribution and on the other hand, innovation in flavours is helping us get new consumers into the category, which will have a rub-off effect on the brand.

Zestee is a new brand with just four flavours, what is your brand proposition? How soon are you looking to put it on the national stage? How?

We will remain focused on Zestee’s brand proposition, which is easy to understand, engaging, unique, relevant and consistent.

As a team, we have decided that actions and behaviour will revolve around keywords vibrant and voguish. We define vibrant as bubbly, young and cool. Voguish means contemporary and trendy. We are very happy with the consumer response, however, a lot of work will have to be done before we expand nationally.

The Rs 10-15 price segment of beverages has been growing the fastest in the recent past, at which price point are you seeing traction? Are these prices sustainable in the long run? Do they allow you to operate at a healthy margin?

At Rs 10-15 price point, we are not dealing with brands, but undifferentiated products. Carbonated soft drinks (CSDs) and juices thrive in this price segment. Commoditisation is a key reason why many growth markets disappoint investors. Sales volumes grow as expected but as the market matures, prices come under pressure and margins shrink, which is happening this year due to excess capacity. This price segment thrives on basically non-drinkers. However, there is a demand for good quality fruit drinks and juices at the price point of Rs20-25. We want to get into this vacuum, with a plethora of good tasting and innovative flavours without compromising on cost. A new entrant would always be under pressure to operate at healthy margins but once a brand has critical mass and some traction, efficiencies start to kick in.

What about the pitfalls in the current market?

One pitfall, which one should avoid, is that we should not rescind value of the brand in a highly commoditised market.

How difficult will it be for the regional players to stand up against giants like Pepsi, Coke, Dabur and others in the market?

The most important question is; do you have the right business story? It starts with a point of difference. If you don’t have one, then don’t play the game. Your right story must have 3-4 things which are key to stand up against giants. First, define your brand and communicate your USP. Second – as Jack Welch said, ‘if you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete’. Choose your competitive advantage. You need to get a right combination of quality, price or service and outdo the competition in the segment you are competing. Third, communicate with (market research) and to your consumers (advertising). If you do not, someone else will. Last but not the least, excite your consumers with innovation. We will have to see and analyse how the MNC cola majors re-engage, re-energise and make their stories unique and strong so that their own growth story remains intact.