8th January 2017. Tamil Nadu. Chennai. This was a historic day when around 2,00,000 young people gathered at Marina Beach for 15 days in solidarity to legalize Jallikattu, a traditional Tamil game played during the harvest festival of Pongal, that involves releasing a rogue bull while crowds of people run behind it and try to stop it. These fifteen days not only saw a surge in Tamil patriotism, but also a boycott of imported products, especially aerated drinks.
Amidst the largest youth gathering in Tamil Nadu, Kalavathy Ramesh and E. Muthukumaran had their ‘aha moment’. Both of them had been working in advertising at an MNC and were looking to become entrepreneurs in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) sector. The wave of ‘everything Tamil’ coincided with the trending health consciousness movement making sugar-cane juice the ideal market to break into. That marked the birth of Green Crush Sugarcane Juice.
Sugarcane juice and coconut water are the two most widely prevailing natural health drinks in the state. Of the two, the former is almost always viewed with skepticism regarding hygiene and the kind of ingredients mixed in it. “That is how we derived our mission. We wanted the preparation to be as transparent as possible,” Kalavathy explains. Today that is what…
