Manpasand Beverages takes on soft drink majors with health drink 'Siznal'

Firm eyes urban kitty with honey-based vegetable-fruit blend juice products; will double capacity to 300,000 cases/day with Rs 6 bn capex

On track to doubling its capacity, Vadodara-based Manpasand Beverages is looking to take on soft drink majors in FMCG sector with its latest health drink brand 'Siznal'. Targeting the healthy drinking consumers, Manpasand Beverages has rolled out a slew of juices that are blends of fruits and vegetables, sweetened with honey.

Currently, offered in four different blends of vegetables and fruits including beetroot-carrot, orange-carrot, pomegranate-carrot, and cucumber-spinach, the Siznal brand is targeted at urban consumers.

"Sugar consumption is becoming a major impediment in the juice market in urban areas. Hence, we have come up with a fruits-cum-vegetable drink which is sweetened by honey under the 'Siznal' brand name targeting the urban consumers. With this, we would be one of the very few companies to have a wide range of products in the juice market, right from a small mango drink priced at Rs 5 to a premium drink product priced at over Rs 100," said Abhishek Singh, promoter and director of Manpasand Beverages.

As per an Axis Securities report, Indian juices drink segment is set to outgrow carbonated drink segment with a 23 per cent volume compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period of 2016-2021 as against a 9.6 per cent CAGR for carbonated soft drinks segment in the Indian market.

From being a merely mango pulp drink maker under the flagship brand 'Mango Sip', Manpasand Beverages has been enhancing its product portfolio, with Siznal being its latest offering. Going forward, the company wants to establish itself as an affordable fruit and vegetable based healthy alternative to other soft drinks in the market. Manpasand Beverages is banking on the low per capita consumption of juices and soft drinks in the country for the same.

Indian soft drinks per capita consumption is estimated at roughly five litres per annum as compared to the global average of 91.9 litres per annum, USA's 100 litres per annum, China's 64 litres per annum and Brazil's 127 litres per annum.

"In the next six months, we will be launching more health drinks for urban areas as well as drinks for mass market. Per capita consumption of juices and soft drinks is very low in India. And there are hardly couple of players with reach of over 3-4 million outlets. In the coming years, by enhancing our product portfolio and distribution we want to establish ourselves as a widely available affordable healthy drink player," Singh told Business Standard.

For this, the company is not only doubling its capacity but also ramping up its distribution network. On the back of this, by 2020, Manpasand expects to process five times the quantity of pulp at 12,000 tonnes per annum to produce more varieties of vegetables and fruit juices.

Currently, apart from its flagship brand 'Mango Sip', Manpasand Beverages' product portfolio comprises Fruits Up (carbonated and juices), Coco Sip (coconut water), flavoured ORS, Jeera Sip, Aprilla (carbonated apple juice), and Siznal (vegetable and fruit based health drink), among others.

According to Singh, the company is spending around Rs 6 billion, which it raised through QIP to fund its capacity expansion plans.

"Our current production capacity of 150,000 cases per day is being doubled in next four months. This is being done by establishing new manufacturing plants in Vadodara, Varanasi and Sri City. We are also going to amplify distribution at a large scale," said Singh.

While currently its distribution channel reaches out to 600,000 outlets across the country, the company is looking at ways to grow its distribution channel to match the MNCs.

"One of the ways is by tying up with Parle for distribution. While Parle has 10,000 distributors reaching out to 6 million outlets, we have 4000 distributors overseeing only 600,000 outlets. We will have common distribution with Parle. With the new channel, in the coming years, Mango Sip will be the most widely available mango drink. We are hoping to add one million more outlets in the next one year on the back of the tie-up with Parle, taking our total outlet reach to 1.6 million," Singh added.