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India, often called the diabetic capital of the world, faces a significant diabetes prevalence of 10.1 crore, according to the 2023 Indian Council of Medical Research – India Diabetes (ICMR INDIAB) study. This has led to a rise in demand for healthy food and beverages. One such brand, TeaFit, founded by Jyoti Bharadwaj, offers sugar-free tea but struggles with the 18 per cent goods and service tax (GST) on its sugar-free bottled products.
Emphasising the rationalisation of GST rates, Founder Bharadwaj, said that generally, tea comes under the five per cent GST category or in some cases even zero. But the moment you bottle the same tea, it is under 18 per cent. She even compared and demanded rationalisation of the GST rates across all beverages including cola and fruit drinks. She added, “I would urge the government to not look at categories as blanket categories and look at brands and product assortments as what they are. There are new brands that are trying new things and we should not be kind of blanketed with the rest of the category.”
While addressing the rationalisation issue, she shared the reason to found TeaFit, claims that she wanted to create a brand that would give the customers a fair and healthy choice in a beverage aisle that had cola, energy drinks, very sweet fruit-based beverages and nothing remotely healthy.
She added, “India is the diabetic capital of the world right now. But what do we consume? We used to buy groceries, we used to buy fruits, vegetables, all of that, but we never really stepped into the beverage aisle because there was never anything that you could consume. We wanted to create something for that community.”
“Making D2C In Beverages Is Impossible”
Getting consumers and a high retention rate is what any business needs. Companies directly wanted to connect with their customers, eliminating the middleman factor. But direct-to-consumer (D2C) demands a whole ecosystem, from warehouse to transportation, that increases costs.
Bhardwaj highlighted the issue and denied the possibility of a D2C beverage brand. She added, “Making D2C in beverages is impossible. Even to ship it, you have to spend another 30-40 rupees even if it's one bottle. So, the economics of the space do not make for a D2C model.”
TeaFit Operates On Balancing B2B and B2C
While highlighting the challenges a beverage brand would face in going D2C, Bhardwaj believes in balancing business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C).
As the corporate culture is grooming so as the services for the employees in giants like Google, Facebook, Bain Consulting and Microsoft. HRs are reaching out for employee welfare, and employee well-being. They don't want to serve them with unhealthy beverages. The founder stated, “They don't want to give the same thing that everybody else is consuming or that is not necessarily good for health. They go out of their way to find good brands with good promise, good product and bring them on board.”
No To Too Much B2C
Several reports have mentioned, companies involved in greenwashing. Addressing environmental unsustainability as a major area of concern, she talked about practices her company is following. Interestingly, she mentioned to reduce carbon footprint, her company is not targeting more B2C. She added, “We are not focusing on B2C very heavily because it is not just unfriendly to pocket, it is unfriendly to the environment, it is unfriendly logistically, all of it.”
TeaFit, founded in 2023, retails with the top offline stores such as Reliance, 7-Eleven stores, Nature's Basket stores and also operates through quick commerce. Major corporates are also its clients. This quarter, it added Akasa Airlines to its portfolio and even signed up with Meta Offices which is Facebook offices.
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