There are coffee brands, and there are cold drink brands. Then why can there not be a brand for a typical Indian drink, i.e. sugarcane juice? This is what Kirti and Milind Datar thought. Without merely thinking about it, they decided to give sugarcane juice the standing, and to take it to an international scale. This gave birth to their ‘Canebot Sugarcane Juice’ brand. This is an inspiring story of an innovative business, as well as an unheard of research story in the agri-tech field.
Kirti and Milind were earning a handsome salary while working for an IT company in Pune. That’s where they met, and eventually got married. One day, they were having sugarcane juice at a sugarcane juice stall near their office. They saw some people clicking a selfie with Starbucks coffee in their hands. Then they thought, why does this not happen with sugarcane juice? Can there be a sugarcane juice brand? Can there be a cane juice café? The two of them continued to discuss about this. Then they realised that nobody had attempted to do this with sugarcane juice.
Quit their jobs that earned them a fat pay check to create a cane juice brand
Then Kirti and Milind started researching on cane juice. To study sugarcane in depth, they sought guidance from experts from Sugarcane Breeding Institute in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. After giving a deep thought to whether it is possible to create a sugarcane juice brand, they decided to take a leap of faith. They quit their jobs that were earning them fat pay checks.
They started discussing venue options for a café. Then they decided to set up their business in corporate companies. Milind had worked in the HR division in IT companies for several years. So, he had quite a few connects in the industry. He approached several companies to start a cane juice café in their respective companies. But all of them turned down his proposal for hygiene reasons.
Decision makers in a company liked their cane juice, and 7-8 companies gave them a green signal
But the Datar couple did not have a typical sugarcane juice stall in mind. They wanted to focus on hygiene in this business. Rather than a traditional juice extraction machine, they wanted to have an all-enclosed machine. Instead of having the sugarcane kept in the open, they wanted to store it in a closed refrigerator, and serve naturally cool juice to customers. To convince decision-makers from companies about their concept, they invited all of them in an exhibition and gave them a taste of their product. All of them really liked the taste. Eventually, 7-8 companies gave them permission for ‘Canebot’ sugarcane juice. For their café, Kirti and Milind imported semi-automatic machines.
Canebot café became a hit for its hygiene, excellent quality and consistent taste
The speciality of Canebot juice was that the taste was very consistent. But this consistency did not come out of nowhere; the couple put in tremendous hard work to ensure it. In order to get good-quality sugarcane throughout the year, they visited about 90 villages around Pune cultivating sugarcane. They finalised one village that was cultivating good-quality sugarcane all year round. Thanks to the hygiene, excellent taste and consistent taste, Canebot Café became a hit. People actually started visiting the café daily to have sugarcane juice as if it was a ritual. Eventually, this sugarcane juice café was set up in 15-20 companies. Within the next 7-8 years, Canebot was able to set up a successful business.
While things were running smoothly, COVID hit, and all IT companies in Pune closed down their offices. Their business came crashing down. During the pandemic, employees were working from home. Both of them contemplated going back to their previous jobs and working from home.
However, Milind told is, “Our dream of giving our traditional beverage a new identity and taking it to an international scale continued to give us the energy to run our business.”
Manufactured packaged sugarcane juice and fully robotic automatic sugarcane juice machine
Even if COVID became history, IT companies did not start their operations from offices yet. The Datar couple had realised that their Canebot café would not resume as before. They studied further and introduced packaged sugarcane juice in the market. Even that started selling. They realised that they could come up with a sugarcane juice vending machine just like those for coffee. They started researching about such machines. Nobody had made such a machine before. They manufactured a fully robotic automatic sugarcane juice machine. From accepting online payments to inserting sugarcane stick to filling glasses with juices, the machine would do everything. More importantly, the Datar couple got this machine patented. While running the packaged sugarcane juice business, they also worked on making this machine faultless.
Succeeded in getting an investment in lakhs from a Startup India scheme
Kirti and Milind wanted to start such machines in a lot of places like malls and airports. But they were going to need money or funding for it. For this, they got an entry in Shark Tank India. Shark Tank India invests money in really good start-ups. The couple presented packaged juice as well as the machine there. However, they did not succeed in getting investment there. Instead, the sharks advised them to focus on any one out of the two products. They gave this advice a thorough thought and discontinued their packaged juice to fully focus on the fully robotic automatic machine. Thereafter, they were successful in getting an investment in lakhs through a Startup India scheme.
Dream to make sugarcane juice India’s national beverage and take it to an international scale
The couple took a mock test of the fully automatic robotic machine, and it was successful. The ‘Canebot’ business went through several ups and downs, and even transformations. However, Canebot made a huge leap when it came to innovation. Kirti and Milind spent their prime years in coming up with something innovative related to sugarcane juice. They manufactured a machine that nobody in the world had ever made.
The IT companies that previously had a semi-automatic machine are now waiting for a fully automatic machine. The Datar couple wants to have these machines installed in different malls and airports. But beyond this, they want to make sugarcane juice India’s national beverage, and take it to an international scale.
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