Breaking News:No-sugar soda market gets fizzy as regional firms latch on to health hook– What Just Happened

Seeing rising demand for low- and no-sugar drinks, Punjab-based Lahori Zeera plans to launch a stevia-based version of its flagship drink by March, co-founder and chief operating officer Nikhil Doda told Mint.

While the company is introducing a zero-sugar option, Doda defended the nutritional profile of its existing products, saying they are not perceived as ‘junk’ because they combine sugar, salt and lemon juice. “It kind of acts as an electrolyte, it’s like ORS,” he said, adding that oral rehydration solutions contain sugar and salt, but aren’t viewed as sugary beverages.

The pricing is competitive to lure new consumers into the niche segment. The company’s sugar-free variant will be sold at an entry-level ₹10 maximum retail price for a 200ml bottle. The regular variant is also priced ₹10 for a 160 ml bottle, Doda said.

Sugar-free variants are typically priced higher, say industry experts. Santosh Sreedhar, partner at Avalon Consulting, said sugar alternatives are more expensive than sugar itself and sales volumes are lower, which is why sugar-free drinks typically retail at a 30-50% premium over regular variants as brands use the segment to tap a niche, higher-paying consumer base.

In south India, House of Bindu, a Karnataka-based legacy player, was the pioneer of introducing jeera into the market way back in 2002. The brand recently introduced a range of fruit juices made of kokum in December 2025.

“Earlier, our products used to have 14-15% sugar,” said Sathya Sankar, managing director of House of Bindu, which makes the popular Bindu jeera drink. “Now all our new products have only 6-7% of sugar,” he said.

Sankar said the brand wants to cater to the price-conscious consumers, who are also health-conscious.

“We are increasingly seeing youngsters wanting low-sugar drinks,” said Sankar. The brand plans to launch coconut water using natural sugar and is also exploring plans to make its hero product, the Bindu jeera, sugar-free in the coming year.

“The new range of products will be priced in the same range as the ones with sugar, as I believe in producing quality products and passing on the value to the ultimate consumer,” said Sankar.

Aliasgar Hajoori, a fourth-generation entrepreneur, director at Sosyo Hajoori, a 103-year-old legacy player based in Surat, Gujarat, believes sugar is still a dominating factor when it comes to the broader beverage market, but low-sugar and no-sugar is catching up.

Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (RCPL), the FMCG arm of Reliance Retail Ventures, acquired a 50% equity stake in Sosyo Hajoori Beverages Pvt. Ltd in January 2023, with the Hajoori family retaining the rest. The company, led by Abbas Hajoori and his son Aliasgar, makes legacy Indian drinks, including the flagship Sosyo, a soda made using grapes and apples.

The partnership is a part of RCPL’s broader beverage push, which includes its own revival of the Campa brand. Campa now includes sugar-free variants such as Campa Cola Zero Sugar and a Campa Energy Drink Zero Sugar, offering classic cola and energy tastes without added sugar.

The brand is looking to cater to the growing niche segment of consumers who seek non-sugar variants and is planning to launch a low- to no-sugar variant of their beverages sometime next year.

But it’s not that the outlook for traditional sugar-laced beverages has dimmed. “I think the low- to no-sugar beverage market will remain very small compared to the beverages that have sugar. They won’t be able to compete because Indians still love sweets and sugar will dominate, but these two segments will co-exist in the future,” said Hajoori.

“There is a real consumer demand for sugar-free variants, driven by rising awareness around diabetes, obesity and high BMI,” said Sreedhar of Avalon Consulting, adding that India already has about 100 million adults living with diabetes, pushing up the demand for sugar-free products across categories, including juices, sweetmeat and chocolates.

Lahori Zeera’s foray into the low- and no-sugar-variant beverage category reflects a broader consumer trend set by aerated beverage giants such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi and Campa.

Low- and no-sugar products are already forming a meaningful part of volumes at PepsiCo’s largest Indian bottler.

Raj Gandhi, president and whole-time director at Varun Beverages Ltd, the maker of brands such as Pepsi and Mirinda, said low-sugar and no-sugar products accounted for about 56% of the company’s consolidated global sales volumes in the nine months ended September 2025, and roughly 45% in India, underscoring how rapidly the segment is gaining traction even in mass markets.

Ravi Jaipuria, chairman of Varun Beverages, highlighted the importance of affordability in driving wider adoption across beverage categories, calling ₹10-a-pack MRP an “extremely aggressive” but powerful price point for expanding consumption beyond metros. “You can’t even get a small cup of tea today for ₹10,” he said, adding that such pricing can significantly accelerate penetration in India’s rural and semi-urban markets.

Jaipuria said India’s beverage market still has substantial headroom due to low per-capita consumption, saying competition and sharper pricing are likely to help grow the overall category over the next few years, rather than merely shift share between brands.

To counter Reliance’s Campa, Pepsi and Coca-Cola had rolled out their no-sugar and light variants at ₹10 in the core markets, according to a report in The Economic Times in March 2025.

Avalon’s Sreedhar said with wider availability, sugar-free offerings are gradually moving beyond affluent urban pockets to tier-2 and tier-3 towns, as brands test real demand. While the category is likely to remain niche, he expects it to become an important proposition over time, commanding a premium much like other health-led segments such as high-fibre or low-fat products.