Imagine spending an entire month travelling the length of the country, braving dusty, kachcha roads, narrow lanes and traffic congestion. And that too twice a year, for 10 years! Dhirendra Singh did just that between 1998 and 2008 — his travels took him and what is today rural India’s favourite fruit drink, Mango Sip, to practically every nook and cranny of the country.

During his travels, Singh would often spend an entire day at a shop observing customers, their spending preferences and the shopkeepers’ expectations. He soon saw that pricing and commissions alone could drive sales in tier-II towns and rural areas, and that the ‘district-headquartered distributor’ model would fail here. No surprise then that Mango Sip, manufactured by Singh’s Manpasand Beverages, is synonymous today with mango juice in the hinterland.

But when he embarked on this journey 18 years ago, little did Singh know that demand for his juice would outstrip supply even after doubling production annually. “Those days, juices were seasonal drinks. After June-July, nobody would buy them again till next summer. Now, it’s bought through the year,” he says.

Friendly advice

With almost no knowledge of the business, Singh ventured into it in 1996 only because a friend advised him to. “I had moved from Mumbai to Vadodara when I was working for a petroleum company. Since Gujarat has an entrepreneurial culture, the bug bit me too,” he says.

With a bank loan of ₹2.5 lakh and some money borrowed from family and friends, he bought the right to use the National Dairy Development Board’s (better known by its brand, Amul) mango juice-making spare capacity at its Mahananda plant in Goregaon, Mumbai, and its packaging facility in Vadodara.

With manufacturing and packaging in place, Singh only had to take care of the product’s marketing and distribution. He decided to test launch it in his hometown, Varanasi, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. With friends helping with the distribution, Singh priced the 200 ml juice pack at ₹6. “The first batch sold within days. In the first year itself, we recorded sales of over ₹70 lakh,” he says.

Thirst for success

Interestingly, Singh was blissfully unaware of the importance of profits and profitability back then. “I didn’t even know these terms. If I had known, I would have opted out as we were not profitable after paying government duties, taxes and margins to distributors and retailers. To us, what mattered then was that sales and demand were rising,” he recalls.

Soon, he was also looking at nearby states. Godrej had a spare capacity at its Bhopal plant and another company had idle capacity in Indore. Singh began to use those too. “In 2005, we set up our own plant in Vadodara.” It had a daily production capacity of 4,000 boxes, each with 27 packs of 200ml juice.

Today, he has plants in Varanasi and Dehradun as well. But there is demand for much more. According to advisory firm Technopak, the fruit drinks market in India stood at ₹3,500 crore in 2012 and will grow at 15-20 per cent till 2017. To meet this burgeoning demand, Singh is coming up with a fourth plant in Vadodara at an investment of ₹100 crore. It will have a daily capacity of 70,000 boxes.

Manpasand’s revenue crossed ₹300 crore last fiscal, and is expected to touch ₹600 crore in FY2015 and ₹1,000 crore by FY2016.

The uncommon touch

Available in 20 states, the retail network of over two lakh outlets wasn’t easy to set up.

During his road trips, Singh identified areas with high footfalls for distributorships. For instance, in Bihar he chose Buxar over Arrah as it has a busier market despite being smaller.

“I personally went to every distributor in the country. I would spend time with them, understand their requirements and even have meals with them at their homes. That was my way of convincing them about my product and its consistent quality,” says Singh.

Over the years, Singh’s forwarding agents and distributors have grown with him. Ravi Mundara, Manpasand’s agent in Maharashtra’s Sangli, started in 2009 and made ₹4 lakh that year. Today, he has 70 distributors across 10 districts buying from him and he will close this fiscal with sales of ₹3 crore. “The company gives us good marketing and sales support,” says Mundara.

To cater to rural buyers with smaller pockets, Singh brought out the 125ml pack for ₹6 (the 200ml pack is priced at ₹10). As Manpasand does not spend heavily on advertising and brand promotion (it mainly relies on word of mouth), Singh is able to give a bigger commission to his distributors and retailers. This not only gets him more stockists, but also helps him stave off competition from the MNC giants, such as Coca-Cola’s Maaza and Pepsico’s Slice. However, Singh made an exception this January, when he signed up actor Sunny Deol as brand ambassador.

Singh is also ready for an initial public offering (IPO) sometime next year. But despite the company’s big-time successes so far, his gaze never wavers from where it all began: the hinterland. “Rural markets welcomed me with open arms. I will continue to grow there,” asserts Singh.

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