A squeal of delight followed by “Aiya! goli soda!” — That’s the initial reaction Balaji Rajan receives from most of his clients. “The excitement I spot in their eyes encourages me to move forward with this venture,” says Rajan, who started Kozzmo Beverages in March last year. For many, the first sip of the drink evokes a plethora of memories. “Every other person has a fond memory or story to share,” says Rajan. He remembers the first time he tried goli soda. He was seven, and was on his way back from Tirupati. Ever since, stopping at that spot became an annual affair, he recalls.
Goli soda has been around for the last 150 years. “But with MNCs coming in, it has been slowly pushed out. Around 50 years ago, there were more than 500 small units in the city. It’s dropped to around 30 now. A few pockets of the city like Triplicane, Mylapore and Mandaveli still have little shops selling these, but the bottles are not very clean and we aren’t sure about how hygienic they are,” says Rajan, adding, “One day, my friends and I were craving for this drink and decided we should just start making it ourselves.”
Sowmya Arjun, Karthik Athreya, Satish Raman, and Anirudh are the other co-founders. It took them three years to research and understand the market, and the product. Kozzmo has six flavours — lemon, orange, grape, paneer soda, nimbu masala, and pineapple. Interestingly, they are all named after famous songs, such as Lemon Tree, Purple Haze, Bed of Roses...
And obviously, the Codd-neck bottles are just as popular as the drink. Very often, clients request Rajan for bottles, even willing to pay extra. “Since only about a few lakh bottles are made in a month, it’s not easy to get them. There is a market up north, where they have a version called banta soda. Goli soda is popular even in the Middle East,” he adds.
Kozzmo’s 200 ml bottles, priced at ₹125, are smaller and lighter than the original Codd-neck bottle, the design for which was patented by English engineer Hiram Codd in 1872. Kozzmo gets their customers to return their bottles, soaks, cleans, rinses, steams and sanitises the bottles in their unit. “Ours is a small unit of six and we do everything in-house so we can keep a check on quality. We manufacture FSSAI-certified goli soda in India.”
Kozzmo produces around 5,000 bottles of goli soda in a month. Other than stores, their client list also includes hotels such as Crowne Plaza, The Westin, Hyatt Regency and clubs such as Madras Cricket Club, Madras Boat Club, Gymkhana Club, Gandhinagar Club. Rajan and the team at Kozzmo is happy with the response so far. “Our B2B has increased from two customers last month to 45 and I’m not even counting the home deliveries. And now investors too are coming in,” smiles Rajan.
