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Thursday, 18th March, 2010

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Sweet Summer Days

 

Once upon a time, we all used to love sugar cane juice. We’d run up to the ‘ganne walla’, wait for an eternity as he turned the wheel and slowly but surely, the glass would fill up on the other end. Ahh, what pleasure it was to drink that on a hot summer afternoon…Then we grew up and stopped drinking it because we go to know how unhygienic it was, and what a health hazard it was. So while we all panged to get a taste of it, it was banished from the kingdom.

Well, sugar cane juice is back. Now available in clean (some place air-conditioned too!) outlets, dispensed via state of the art machines (with GPS to boot), these outlets bring the fun back in to drinking fresh sugar cane juice. With multiple flavors too – pick from lemon, ginger, pineapple, chilli, mint, chat masala and more. One place that offers all this is Cane Fresh.

Started by Aravind and Senthil, to address their own personal craving for quality sugar cane juice in the summers, they decided to build a machine that would vend ultra-hygienic sugar cane juice. “That’s how we started the business and started thinking about various business models and finally settled for franchising the business. We didn’t want to sell the machines outright for one simple reason which is we cannot control the quality of the juice which will defeat the purpose of starting this business.”, says one of the founders. We asked him some more questions:

[MCB] Most of us feel that Sugar cane juice is unhealthy – fact or myth?

[Senthil] It is extremely unhealthy if it is made in a unhygienic way (like the road side vendors where the flies sit in everything), could cause diarrhea.

When made hygienic it is in fact very healthy and could act as an energy drink and hydrating drink. Very good especially for hot weather conditions.

[MCB] The technology behind this seems interesting – for example, how is GSM technology being used to reduce pilferage? How long can it be run non-stop? What is the cleaning process?

[Senthil] The machine sends us a message at least 2 times a day (opening reading and closing reading) so we know how many juices were sold on that day. Also the machine vends the exact amount of juice every time. So it clearly avoids the pilferage. It can run 24/7 nonstop. It is stress tested and has a record of vending 1600+ juice in a day. The machine is indigenously and developed in India by Aravind and we have an International patent for this technology.

Every day evening, the machine gets cleaned “deep” which means we use liquid de-scalar to ensure there no scales that form in the tubes in which juice flows. Besides we remove the removable rollers and clean them to ensure there is no stickiness in the machine. In the morning the operator just flushes the tubes to ensure there are no dusts and starts making the juice. If the machine is idle for 15 mins, then before making the juice, the machine will flush the tubes to ensure there are no stale juice left in the tubes. So you are guaranteed that you get fresh juice each and every single time.

[MCB] What makes CF standout from the competition?

[Senthil] Superior quality of juice (Chilled without ice), technology and “franchisable” business model and affordable for small & medium investors to start a business. Lots of folks who are employed and looking for a small business opportunity, we are ideal candidate for them as we operate it for them so they don’t need to be managing the day to day operations besides that we have a solid fool proof system which they could trust.

[MCB] Can you provide a ‘rough’ estimate around the cost of setting up a franchise of CF? Can I set it up in any location in India?

We have 2 different models. Kiosk based outlet which could be set up inside a mall, in the food courts or in the pavements of grocery stores etc. This would cost somewhere around 3.25 lakhs (approx). Exclusive outlets like the one in Cambridge layout will cost a bit more to do the interiors & rental advance which varies from place to place. The advantage of this model is we are planning to bring new products to the market which will be additional revenue generator

Thirsty yet? Head over here and gulp down a glass or two! And leave a note or two with your comments.

 

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