Lahori Zeera: Hold my masala soda.
While Coke and Pepsi have spent decades building billion-dollar cola empires, a cumin-flavoured soda from Punjab quietly pulled off something wild: a ₹2,500 crore valuation.
And no, it didn’t have celebrity ads, OR billion-dollar backing, OR 47 SKUs to distract you.
It just had jeera, pink salt, lemon, ginger powder—and vibes.
Started by three cousins from Chandigarh, Lahori Zeera began as a bootstrapped business in 2017. They bottled 96,000 units a day back then.
Today? 5 million bottles. Daily.
Mostly sold at ₹10 a pop.
While the rest of the world was obsessing over fancy energy drinks like Sting,
these guys bet on something Indians have always loved—masala.
And that’s the genius:
Cola was invented for Western taste buds.
Jeera, though? Jeera runs in our bloodstream. We literally add spices to Coke to make it drinkable.
Now here’s where it gets juicy: Lahori didn’t scale like the others.
They skipped distributors, went straight to kiranas. Sold in packs of 24. Avoided shrink wrap. Used cardboard cartons for sustainability. Built their own factories in Punjab, Gujarat, and soon UP.
Zero outsourcing. Full control.
While everyone else was chasing variety, Lahori focused: 90% of their revenue comes from just ONE product.
And it works.
FY24 revenue? ₹312 crore.
Profits? Tripled to ₹23 crore.
FY25 target? ₹530 crore.
For comparison: Paperboat took a decade to hit ₹500 crore.
Their competitors?
- Paperboat couldn’t scale.
- Bisleri’s RimZim was a flop comeback.
- Parle had to re-launch Dhishoom out of FOMO.
- Jeeru’s still stuck in regional lanes.
But Lahori? Already in 15 states.
Cracking open a ₹3,000 crore jeera-drink market that barely existed in 2017.
Of course, there are challenges:
- The South isn’t on board yet.
- Eastern expansion from a UP factory is inefficient.
- And running a ₹10 beverage business with GST, logistics, packaging and margins? Near impossible.
But that’s the thing:
They made it possible.
They bet on volume. On scale. On flavour.
If a ₹10 soda can rattle the carbonated elite, maybe tradition is the new disruption.
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