ET Make in India SME Regional Summits: How Lahori Zeera stormed India’s beverage aisles

It started, quite literally, in the kitchen.

One ordinary day, three cousins sat together. Not with a business plan, but with the simple urge to build something — anything. Then, one cousin wandered into the kitchen, made a concoction, and served it. The first sip of that concoction became their ‘Eureka!’ moment.

In case you’re wondering, it was a jeera drink. And that drink became the spark for Lahori Zeera, the cult favourite ‘chatpata’ beverage that holds its own in India’s cutthroat soft drink market.

“It’s something so basic, yet so deeply part of our culture,” recalled Saurabh Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO of Archian Foods Pvt Ltd, the company behind Lahori Zeera. “But we thought ‘why not make this commercial?’”

Munjal headlined the business success story fireside chat at the ET Make in India SME Regional Summit in Chandigarh, which took place on August 7. IDBI was the banking and lending partner, and Canon was the tech enabler for the summit.

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Speaking of Lahori Zeera’s early days, Munjal added that he couldn’t help but compare India’s limited beverages with the dizzying variety in supermarkets abroad. “Even in Tier-I Indian cities, the options were sparse,” he said. “We knew this was the right space to enter.”As desi as it gets
From day one, Lahori Zeera set out to be more than a drink: it would be a statement of Indianness. When Munjal pitched the idea to his father after returning from Singapore, the reaction was blunt: “You want to compete with Coke and Pepsi? Are you crazy?”

It was a daunting challenge, but it taught the team some important lessons.

The first was that India is not one market. Saurabh calls it the ‘United States of India’, where languages, cultures, and taste profiles change every 100 km. Even a simple vegetable dish tastes different in every state. And so the brand had to adapt to local preferences, one region at a time.

The second lesson was that local flavours matter. India is unusual in how Coke and Pepsi dominate; in many countries, half the market belongs to local beverages, Munjal pointed out.

The third lesson was that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. Success meant going deep and understanding districts, cities, and states individually.

At the ET SME Summit – Chandigarh, Munjal also shared that Lahori Zeera’s rise didn’t depend on Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, or other quick commerce players. “In beverages, 70% of sales, even for Coke and Pepsi, come from local kiranas,” he said. For Lahori Zeera, general trade contributes 98% of revenue.

Quick commerce has its place in dense urban pockets, but for most of India, the corner shop remains king. “Both will coexist. But kirana stores are still the backbone,” he said.

Formulae for success
Breaking into the FMCG sector equals fighting for shelf space, and incumbents don’t give it up easily. In impulse-buy categories like Lahori Zeera’s, you might get someone to try your drink once through marketing or fancy packaging. But if it’s not good, they won’t buy again.

For Lahori Zeera, three pillars were non-negotiable:

• Product: It has to be genuinely good, something people crave.
• Price: “South Bombay and South Delhi are not India,” Munjal noted. “Out of 145 crore people, only 10 crore file income tax returns, and half of those pay zero. Our brand is built for the other 135 crore.”
• Distribution: If the product and price are right, retailers will welcome it.

And when it comes to startup valuations, Munjal believes there should be more to them than revenue. The founder, potential scale, and size of the category all matter; a small category caps growth quickly, but a large one offers room to scale. But profitability counts above all. If it’s not profitable, you’re doing something wrong, he said.

According to the Archian Foods CEO, we are living in India’s golden era, a rare moment when capital, talent, infrastructure, and policy are all aligned. He also offered crucial advice for young entrepreneurs in Punjab: to dream, desire, and do. Many people dream and desire, but never act:

“Your kids will one day ask, ‘when India was having its moment, what were you doing?’ My suggestion is to stop overthinking and start doing. The path won’t be easy, but you’ll find your way.”

More to come
Today, Lahori Zeera is sold in 15 Indian states and proudly headquartered in Chandigarh, with no plans to shift base. The brand aims to go pan-India soon, and achieve an international presence within five years.

The ultimate goal? “To be the preferred beverage brand in India,” Munjal concluded without hesitation at the ET Make in India SME Regional Summit – Chandigarh.

Given the brand’s journey from a kitchen experiment to a large-scale player, that dream doesn’t sound farfetched.

The ET Make in India SME Regional Summits, ET MSME Day, and ET MSME Awards are flagship initiatives to celebrate the versatility and success of India’s MSME sector. If you lead or are part of a micro, small, or medium enterprise, register for the ET MSME Awards 2025 before August 31, 2025.

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