India's most selling cold drinks are made by foreign companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. In this market, 9 years ago, an Indian company came in which sold a bottle of only Rs 10 and established an empire of Rs 2800 crores. We are talking about a drink which was never promoted by a Bollywood star or a famous cricketer. Moreover, there were no viral ad campaigns for its promotion. - India has to change its strategy. The year is 2017. The place is a city 40 km away from Chandigarh, Fatehgarh. Three of his cousins, Saurabh Munjal, Nikhil Doda and Saurabh Bhutna, used to live here. As is common, three people together make a big mess. Nikhil experimented with soda drinks with the spices he had at home. He first took soda water, then added cumin, black salt and lemon to it and made a quick drink. - In the area around India, Bindu Jeera and in Gujarat, some regional companies like Jiru were active but their reach in the markets of North India was not that much. By making this their goal, three brothers invested around Rs 1 crore and made a company in 2017. Its name is Archain Foods Private Limited. This company launched its first product under the name Lahori Jeera. There is a cultural context behind this name. This name idea came from Lahori Namak. The same name we know as Senda Namak in the common language. Which is the soul of this cold drink. From there, Lahori was added to the name of this drink. Which later became the reason for the controversy. Anyway, the first bottling unit of this company was installed in Chandigarh. This was quite small in scale because the trial phase of the product was going on. This unit filled the bottles in auto and was delivered to the local shops and outside the colleges. The feedback and market response of the drink was taken. Most people gave positive feedback. But after this, the company was hit by two shocks. First of all, the bank refused to give a loan to plant. And then the local shopkeepers did not take the risk of giving space to this product in their fridge. Obviously, whatever will be seen, whatever will be sold, will be kept in the shops. At that time, in the market, there was no risk of taking space for this new drink in the middle of the cold drinks. Natcha Tata. The three boys asked for help from their families. They took a loan of around 5 crore rupees and started their factory. There was one more obstacle. Distributors didn't trust the drink. They were told to take the goods and go to the shops. The three brothers started to search the market. They talked to the customers and got the customers tested for free. They also got the demand from the ground. This led to orders from the shops. He used to drink from his mouth, now he himself started demanding for Lahori jeera orders. Behind this heavy demand, Lahori's biggest masterstroke was the price of cold drinks. He kept the price of one bottle for only Rs. 10. Because of this, Lahori created a business model which is a dream for big companies. Which is called negative working capital. If we understand it in simple terms, then usually companies first make money from their pockets and make some stuff, then sell it. foreign The brand was chosen with great understanding. Instead of malls in big cities, it targeted small towns, villages and villages where the language of most people was native. This was the reason why Lahori never made any film star its brand ambassador and no expensive ads were made. Rather, it made the language of people its biggest marketing. This cold drink was so popular that the company launched a campaign inspired by it in 2024. Lahori Jeera. Gradually, the sale of cold drinks increased so fast that now a problem arose in front of the company. Due to heavy demand, the shops started to close and despite the demand, the company was not able to make that many bottles. To solve this problem, Lahori made a strategy. The real power of any company is hidden in its factory. The more bottles you can make, the bigger your kingdom will be. In the beginning, Lahori used to make 96,000 bottles daily. By the year 2022, it reached the level of making 20 lakh bottles daily. And now, in the year 2026, Lahori is making about 1 crore bottles daily. This level is such that Lahori is making more than 100 bottles every second and selling them in the market. The biggest problem was the expensive shipping costs. Just imagine, if a truck is sold for Rs 10, the entire truck will cost around Rs 3 lakh. And if the bottles are sent from Punjab to Maharashtra, the entire truck will be sold for Rs 10. Where demand was high, a factory was built around it. Where it was difficult to build a factory, a co-bottling method was adopted. That is, to get your goods manufactured in another factory. Just like Coca-Cola and Bisleri. This not only solved the supply problem, but also made the entire business model strong. And that too at a time when most of the startups were losing crores of rupees through ads and discounts. small things very smartly. To understand this, you can see this table. The company's financial discipline has led to the financial year 2019 in which Lahori's earnings were only Rs. 11 crore. It has jumped to Rs. 312 crore in the financial year 2024. In the next year, in 2026, this figure has reached around 770 crore rupees. Using this little money and profit wisely is the secret to Lahori Jeera's success. Here you must have noticed that Lahori is earning profit every year. And because of this, the eyes of the big investors are on Lahori. It was in 2021 when Lahori got its first big investor. It was the famous investment company of Belgium, Volinvest. It is the same company known to invest in the world's largest consumer brands. It invested around 1.5 crore dollars in Lahori. That means, according to that time, the gross profit was 120 crores. This one investment has cost the company more than 500 crores. Saurabh Bhutna says that it was not just money. This deal has tripled the company's valuation. The company that was valued at Rs. 700-900 crores in 2022, has now reached around Rs. 2800 crores. Despite all these deals, the company's earnings are still in the hands of three brothers. The founders have 71% of the shares, while the world investors have only 2% of the shares. and Motilal Oswal has a share of 7%. Lahori's success has created new enemies in the company. First, the fake army. As soon as Lahori Jeera hit, the market was filled with fake bottles that looked the same. Some were selling P&S Lahori Jeera, some were selling Lahore Jeera. The bottle's design was the same, the label's colour was the same, and the name was just a little bit of hair. This affected the fact that the customers in the villages were not able to understand the difference between the real and fake Lahori Jeera. This started to make the brand image of Lahori Jeera a big dent. The customer's taste is spoiled by fake Lahori Jeera, then its direct impact will be on the customer's trust. Anger caused the company to reach Delhi High Court against the fake people. Where the court also said that the names Lahori Jeera and PNS Lahori Jeera are so similar that the common customer can be deceived. This is why later on the use of these names was banned forever. In the meantime, another problem came in front of the company. This is May 2025. After the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India and Pakistan were at a dead end. And in such an atmosphere, a new trend started on social media. In this, those brands were targeted, whose names had any connection with Pakistan. In the middle of this trend, Lahori Jeera also came. On Instagram and X, the hashtag #BoycottLahoriJeera started running. People questioned that why the name of an Indian company is mentioned as Lahore. As the chaos increased, the co-founder of the company, Nikhil Doda, clarified that there are two reasons behind this name. First, Lahore food is known for its old memories. This name was a natural choice. Second, black salt, which is commonly known as Lahori salt, is the life of our drink. Despite this whole mess, the company's sale did not have a big impact. But in 2015,
