Competitors

Drinking practices vary substantially among different anthropological and

social groups. Beverages which are widely consumed across geographies can be
classified broadly into alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. While developed
countries continue to be the big markets for nonalcoholic beverages, developing
nations like India and China are coming up in a big way as far as production bases
and consumption are concerned. However, unlike its Chinese counterpart, India is a
still one of the smaller players in the global non-alcoholic beverage sector not only
in terms of manufacturing capabilities, inflow of foreign investment, research &
development (R&D) base and exports, but also in terms of per capita consumption
of non-alcoholic beverages.
In recent times, there seem to be a paradigm shift towards fresh fruit vending from
kiosk fountains which produce instant juices from fresh fruits in the customers
presence. Fast growing middle class population, increased urbanization and
relatively higher disposable income are some of the major reasons contributing to
this change. Besides this, higher degrees of growing health consciousness among
Indias youth has revolutionized the Indian non-alcoholic drinks market.
The non-alcoholic beverages market in India can be classified into:

Tea/Coffee
Milk-based &
Others (includes fruit and vegetable extracts)

Traditionally, we have had Assam, Nilgiri and Darjeeling tea ruling the roost before
black tea, green tea and masala chai made its way into the consumers minds.
Mumbai, though had its fair share of cutting chai. In the southern parts of India,
coffee of filter coffee is more popular. In recent times, Lipton and HUL have
launched Iced tea, one of the most popular among other variants.
The milk-based products comprise of Lassi, badam and kesar milk, buttermilk and
falooda. Most of them are available at major eating joints either preferred fresh in
front of consumers or available in packaged form eg. Amuls chocolate lassi.
The other popular beverages (available in packaged form as well) that do not fall in
either of the aforementioned categories are aam panna, coconut water, frooti, jal
jeera, kala khatta, nimbu paani, thandai, sugarcane juice and sharbat.
However, none of these are widely popular as a party drink per se and are mostly
consumed as a filler item either before/after a meal or between meals. Presently,
mock-tails are available only in pubs or bars or are domestically prepared. One
challenge that has prevented mock-tails being commercialized is the fact that it is
best consumed when prepared fresh but with packaged lassi or nimbu paani now
becoming widely popular, it paves the way for such innovations to come into the
marketplace.