The next time you walk into any supermarket looking for a healthy dairy beverage, you are likely to spot Goodness! a new ready-to-drink, dairy brand that offers Oats and Yogurt smoothies, and Coffiatos (cold brewed coffee).

Goodness! is the brainchild of an Indian start-up Goodness!Beverages, run by a husband and wife team. Chaitanya Chitta and Lakshmi Dasaka gave up living in the US to chase their entrepreneurial aspirations in India. They chose to play in the food and beverages space, because nearly 70-80 per cent of an Indian family’s monthly purchase bill goes towards F&B.

“Did you know that one in three Indians skip breakfast, the most important meal of the day,” asks Chaitanya. He adds that in Bengaluru alone, two out of three millennials skip breakfast more than three times a week. They decided to provide people with an ‘anytime breakfast’ option with smoothies in a bottle. Packed with the goodness of oats, the smoothies are gluten-free, rich in fibre and serve as the perfect breakfast on-the-go, he said. Priced at ₹49 for 190 ml, the smoothies are available in Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry flavours and were an instant hit.

For others who need a quick caffeine boost, the start-up has created Coffiatos with 100 per cent Arabica beans sourced from Chikmagalur district in Karnataka, which are available in classic and hazelnut flavours, priced at ₹49 for 190 ml. “Besides Starbucks and a few speciality cafés that offer cold brewed coffee, Goodness! is the only bottled cold brewed coffee in the country. Our signature cold brewing technique ensures that our coffee is high on caffeine and low on acidity, to help recharge you on a tiring day,” he said.

Flavours galore

The couple also identified customer demand for healthy snacking options and came up with yogurt smoothies in mango and ginger mint flavours, priced at ₹49 for 190 ml. All the beverages are free of preservatives, artificial flavours and colours. Lakshmi says: “we ensure that sugar levels are kept to the minimum without compromising on taste. While the ginger mint yogurt smoothie is completely sugar-free, most of our beverages contain at least 40 per cent less sugar than leading aerated and fruit juice brands.”

The market opportunity for packaged dairy beverages in India is estimated at ₹2,500 crore and projected to grow to ₹6,500 crore by 2022. The space is dominated by large Indian corporations such as Amul, Aavin, Nandini and Mother Dairy. Multinationals have smelt the huge opportunity. While Coca-Cola India joined the fray with the launch of VIO flavoured milk in almond delight and kesar treat variants last year, Pepsico is looking to enter into the space with dairy beverages that cater to the nutrition needs of breakfast.

Success mantra

How does a start-up expect to pit itself against domestic and multinational Goliaths and yet hope to succeed? “It is really simple,” said Chaitanya. A start-up’s job is to meet customer demand with a product offering and not create demand where none exists.

“It was a lesson learnt when our first start-up Smarton Learning didn’t do as well as we had expected because, we first created an online learning platform for alternative skills and then tried hard to create demand for it.”

Goodness!Beverages sells 50,000 units and earns ₹2.5 crore per month. Nearly 60 per cent of its sales is from institutions and the rest from 1,000 retail stores in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi.

The beverages are available in gourmet and niche modern trade outlets and retailed out of five restaurant chains – California Burrito, Leon Grill, Faasos, Pizza Stop and Biggies Burger.

Growth chart

“The sales we achieved over 15 months in Bengaluru, took only three months to achieve in Delhi, as our go-to-market strategy had been honed in the Bengaluru market. Sales are growing 30 per cent month-on-month and we are aiming to hit ₹10 crore per month in annualised revenue in the next six months. This is possible with our new market launches in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai,” said Chaitanya. The start-up has tied up with dairy manufacturing companies that have provided it a dedicated production line.

The start-up, formerly known as Dropkaffe and founded in Bengaluru in 2015, began by selling hot and cold coffees, milkshakes and smoothies which was a way to understand what customers actually craved for. “Cold coffee was the clear winner recalls,” Lakshmi.

Goodness!Beverages has received ₹10 crore in seed funding from a clutch of investors.

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