Check out India's first black alkaline water that hydrates, detoxifies and keeps you healthy

Did you know that there is black and natural alkaline bottled water available in India which keeps you more hydrated, healthier and also detoxifies your body?

AV Organics, a company started in 2018, has come up with a new category of water sold under the brand name Evocus, which is also India’s first black alkaline water.

Launched in June, Evocus is enriched with more than 70 minerals with high pH level.

But why is the water black in colour?

Talking to Moneycontrol, Aakash Vaghela, co-founder, MD, AV Organics, explained, “Minerals that are used to enrich the water are black in colour. We have more than 70 minerals infused in the water to enrich the water. That gives the colour black to the water.”

While Evocus is made in India, the core minerals are extracted from a rare deposit location from Texas. These minerals are refined in an associate plant which is headed by Nobert Chirase who is also the chief mentor of Evocus.

“We refine these minerals in the US and bring them to India and at my manufacturing which is situated in Vadodara we have our unique formulation and that’s how the product is made,” said Vaghela.

AV Organics’ manufacturing cum bottling plant is spread across 50,000 sq feet.

Evocus first started selling in Pune in June followed by Chandigarh in August.

“The next launch city will be Delhi (NCR), which includes Gurgaon in early October, closely followed by Jaipur and Hyderabad where we have finalized our distribution. Next planned cities are Bengaluru, Indore and Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara),” Vaghela added.

By March next year, the company has plans to cover 20 markets.

Vaghela is also planning to go global with Evocus.

“We will be in opening in international markets after March. UAE will be our first international target market,” he said.

Evocus is also available online on Snapdeal, Flipkart and Amazon.

“Most of the sales are happening on our website and Amazon,” he said.

Vaghela will also be looking at tier II and III cities but only those that are closer to the main markets. The company will track the online sales basis which they will choose to enter the smaller towns.

Currently, AV Organics is focused on distribution but they have a target of selling three to five million bottles in the next three years.

Packaged in virgin plastic bottles, a 500 ml bottle of Evocus is available for Rs 100.

They have also launched a 250 ml bottle three days ago which was developed especially for the catering business especially the wedding industry.

“So, there are two channels of sales that we are incorporating. One channel is the retail trade – mostly modern trade and premium general trade outlet. Other channel is HORECA which is hotels, restaurants and cafes,” said Vaghela.

He added that, “For hotels, we are creating a glass bottle variant. We will be having our placements in premium hotels. Before December this year we will in few hotels.”

But are Indians ready to spend for such products?

Vaghela is confident about the premium water industry and said that the industry sits at around Rs 10,000 crore according to a 2017 report. He said the industry is growing at 20 percent year-on-year.

“Even the modern trade outlets, 10 years ago we didn’t have many such outlets now we have more than 200-300 outlets in the country and they are seeing a lot of premium water and the off take is definitely there,” said Vaghela.

Being a health-conscious person Vaghela said that there is a health revolution going on in the country.

And this is probably why he was keen on launching Evocus for which he pumped in investments to the tune of USD one million for the plant and machinery.

Investments for research and product development will be another USD 1.5 million by March, he added.

“I have the intention of following the entire journey of a startup which will be three to five rounds of VC funding and eventually the private equity round and then finally an IPO,” he further said.