Traditional drinks brand Paper Boat to sail into more cities with regional variants

Buoyed by the success of its traditional Indian drinks brand Paper Boat, Hector Beverages, is on an expansion spree.

The company will take the brand to more cities, besides creating additional manufacturing capacity and also plans to launch nearly 18 new variants in the next few months.

Neeraj Kakkar, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Hector Beverages, said: “We have been seeing growth every month and during summers months, demand was some times more than our manufacturing capacity.

So, we were focusing on two cities — Delhi and Bangalore — with some restricted presence in other cities. Now, we are focusing on expanding Paper Boat’s presence to Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad.”

The company for now looking to tap urban consumers in cities.

Kakkar said the company had a plant at Manesar in Haryana, which was manufacturing about two-and-a-half million pieces a month.

Now, it is building a new plant in Mysore, Karnataka, which will increase the company’s monthly capacity to about 10 million pieces a month.

The Mysore plant is expected to start manufacturing in March next year.

Hector Beverages is backed by private equity players that include Sequoia Capital, Catamaran Ventures and Footprint Ventures. The company, which started with launching energy drink brand Tzinga, has so far invested about ₹55-60 crore.

While Kakkar refused to give details about the company’s turnover, he said the company reached the operational break-even point this summer.

A large chunk of its sales comes from selling its products on low-cost airlines, office canteens and modern trade.

It is also looking to ramp up its presence in smaller stores.

Key challenges “Since retail is fragmented in India, distribution is one of the key challenges. We are present in about 20,000 outlets and plan to increase this to 50,000 outlets by next year,” he added.

Kakkar said the company was going to add more regional flavours to its range of Paper Boat packaged beverages. On the cards is coconut water, tulsi and ginger flavoured low-sugar iced tea, besides packaging niche ethnic beverages, such as Bihar’s sattu and Bel sharbat , which are popular across States.

“Sourcing of raw materials and managing the supply chain is challenging.

“For instance, we are engaging with a tribal belt near Ooty to get the right quality of Jamun and trying to source lemon cells from European countries for getting our nimbu paani right.

“We believe we need to get an authentic taste for these drinks and are excited about introducing 18 new variants in the next one-and-a-half years,” he said.

Early this year, the company also started exporting to the US, the UK, Canada and the UAE, targeting the Indian diaspora.

COMMENT NOW