Rasna eyes ready-drink market with Fruitplus

Soft drink concentrate maker Rasna has recently launched its ready-to-drink fruit concentrate named Fruitplus.

According to Piruz Khambatta, Chairman and Managing Director, Rasna, "Unlike our other offerings, which take time to dissolve in water, this concentrate gets dissolved within 5 seconds and offers greater nutritional value of fruits. Through the offering, we will upgrade ourselves from being a player in the Rs 400-crore (Rs 4 billion) soft drink concentrate market to the Rs 700-crore (Rs 7 billion) fruit drink market, which is growing at 20 per cent annually."

Fruitplus was launched in four flavours -- orange, lemon, mango and pineapple, which will be available in bottled packs as well as in pouches.

He said Rasna had often been viewed as a children's drink. The company will market Fruitplus to target kids above 15, which will expand the consumer base of the product.

The company has added a new feature by packaging the product in sachets.

The sachets have been priced at Rs 3 each (launch price of Rs 2) a glass. The logic behind this pricing is to fill the market gap at the lower price, at which other fruit drink makers such as Parle, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are not present.

Through this pricing, Rasna is hoping to compete with beverage makers as well as concentrate makers such Kraft (maker of Tang) simultaneously. While a 200-ml Frooti is priced at Rs 10, Real juice at Rs 15 and Minute Maid at Rs 22, Rasna will be priced at Rs 3.

The company has a distribution base of 1.8 million retail outlets and it sold 3 billion glasses of concentrates last year. The company is planning to retail Rasna in other countries as well. It is already exporting other Rasna variants in 40 countries and manufacturing them abroad.

Rasna has tried to revamp its brands over the past 10 years in several ways. Whereas its Oranjolt aerated drink did not click the consumers, it has continued to market other variants such as Rasna Rozana.

It holds a 93 per cent market share in the concentrate segment in India and 82 per cent of the in-house consumption of the soft drink market.