Juice-based soft drinks market has potential to grow: Pandey

The market for juice-based softdrinks in the country has the potential to grow in geometricprogression, said Himanshu Pandey, MD Suru Foods andBeverages.

He said this at the launch of Yas juice-based softdrink at Kolkata on Friday. Suru Foods and Beverages, is theparent company of YAS.

Pandey said YAS will tap the market of juice-basedsoft-drinks not just in metros but also in India's smallertowns and in the hinterland.

''The market for juice-based soft drinks has thepotential to grow in geometric progression. And, YAS, whosename is the millennial version of an emphatic 'Yes', is thebrand that will ride it by appealing to the youth who willmake up most of our population in the future'', he claimed The brand is the brainchild of IIMC-IIM alumnusPandey, who quit his corporate career to start the state-of-the-art enterprise that will take his local community along onthe road to employment and value creation. He has had stintsin some of India's premier companies in the media andentertainment sector such as Tata Sky, Airtel DTH and Group M.

With YAS, Pandey hopes to not only establish apioneering FMCG brand, but also create ample organisedemployment in his hometown in East Champaran.

YAS will be one of many from the stable of the food-processing company, Suru Foods and Beverages Pvt Ltd, thatPandey has founded.

''While each of the YAS variants harks back to flavourswe have loved growing up, and often found in the unorganisedretail sector, their taste has been painstakingly fine-tunedby the core team,'' he said.

Among its portfolio lies the one-of-a-kind drinkcalled Panchratna, which fuses real beetroot extract with thesavoury punch from pepper and a host of Indian spices to offera drink like no other. It is at home whether consumed straightout of the bottle, mixed in cocktails or even when frozen as apopsicle.

YAS Shikanji is another variant championing the zestylocal drink sold on carts on hot summer days.

Indian summers are nothing without their mangoes. YASsteps right up with no less than two mango variants Ripe,juicy mangoes get distilled in YAS Mango while tangy, sweetgreen mangoes refresh with every swig from YAS Aam Panna.

With the first manufacturing base in Bihar, it is onlynatural that YAS sports a litchi drink, which will delight theconsumer with extracts from the very best yields of the fruitsourced right from Muzaffarpur.

YAS comes out of the modern, automated manufacturingplant in Areraj, Motihari, in East Champaran, a district inBihar.