Sail's Up

After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, Hector Beverages hit the nail on the head with Paper Boat. It’s now ready to take new and established players in the ethnic drinks category head on.

- Shruti Venkatesh

It was March 2012 and Neeraj Kakkar and his Hector Beverages co-founders, Neeraj Biyani, James Nuttall and Suhas Misra, were gathered around a large roundtable in their Gurgaon (now Gurugram) office. After one failed and another sub-optimal venture, they knew they needed a major overhaul of strategy.

Worldwide, carbonated beverages had not been growing as significantly as those in the functional space (beverages—energy, vitamin or health— that do more for your body than simply quench your thirst or provide taste). Accordingly, when they had founded Hector Beverages in 2010, their first drink was a protein-water drink called Frissia. It didn’t do well and was phased out in a few months. Within a year, in March 2011, they launched an energy drink, Tzinga. But the category was already dominated by existing players like Cloud 9 and Red Bull.

It was time for another rethink. Their office was small, there was no air-conditioner and power cuts were frequent. During lunch, it was common practice to reach out for the aam panna that Misra brought in a steel flask every day. That day, something clicked. “We have this thing every day, we love it and it’s not available anywhere. So why not launch it?” asked Kakkar. “Functional beverages are growing and will grow in India also. But instead of replicating the West, Indian functional beverages are the way to go for us,” he added.