Mindful Drinking; Sustainable Sourcing & Fruit Wine Innovation with Vandana Banerjee

In this episode we sit down with Vandana Banerjee, the visionary founder and CEO of Khoki United. Vandana takes us through her remarkable transition from a career in advertising to becoming a pioneer in the low-and-no (NoLo) alcohol market.

We dive deep into the "why" behind Khoki: a commitment to mindful drinking without sacrificing the luxury of a well-crafted beverage. From rescuing surplus fruit in the orchards of Spain and Germany to navigating the evolving preferences of Gen Z, Vandana shares how she is building a brand rooted in sustainability, inclusion, and artisan craftsmanship.

Key Takeaways
The Big Leap: How Vandana leveraged her background in marketing and branding to disrupt the beverage industry.

Sustainability as a Standard: The logistics of sourcing 100% real fruit directly from farmers to reduce waste.

The NoLo Craft: Why Khoki isn't just a "soft drink"—the science and art of creating alcohol-free fruit wines.

The "New" Social Scene: How shifting consumer health trends and Gen Z’s habits are forcing a market evolution.

Luxury in the Details: The importance of premium packaging and "giftability" in the non-alcoholic space.

Looking Ahead: Future product development and Khoki United’s strategy for international expansion.

Timestamps

[00:00] Introduction to Vandana Banerjee and the founding of Khoki United.
[08:15] Trading the boardroom for the orchard: The transition from advertising.
[15:30] Sourcing secrets: Building sustainable partnerships with European farmers.
[22:45] The Rise of the Mindful Consumer: Analyzing Gen Z’s shift away from alcohol.
[30:10] Aesthetic & Experience: Why high-end packaging matters for alcohol-free options.
[38:50] Navigating industry hurdles: Labeling, health claims, and international growth.
[45:20] What’s next for Khoki United in the UK and beyond.

Connect with Vandana Banerjee

• Website: Khoki United
• Instagram: @KhokiUnited
• LinkedIn: Vandana Banerjee
  
  

Follow us on
Instagram: @montecarlotomarlow
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwVSEldi1G2_w_mgaGkFmJA

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello, welcome to Monte Carlo to Marlo. Hi Ben Dunner, welcome to the podcast. And we have a lovely extra guest as well, a fellow friend. It was lovely to see you at the Marlowe market the other day as well. Yes, thank you. Thank you for being a a regular customer and supporting me in this eventually. Do you like your drinks? Yeah, I do like your drinks. So let's let's start by talking about how you started and what you actually wanted to do originally as a career.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

So that's a big question. Uh when you talk about a career, I think I had uh multiple careers uh from I started at 23 with an advertising as an advertising professional and had my own uh advertising agency uh back in India then. Then I moved to the UK uh in 2009, and ever since I was working with inclusion and teaching. And uh so now after a decade of giving my life with inclusion and working with special needs, I felt there was a there's a huge shift in people uh in uh in consuming the drinks in the low and no segment. And I felt a lot of the Gen Z when I was working uh with 18 plus uh children and 16-year-olds that there was a big movement and a shift towards them not drinking at all. And that's when my daughter turned 18 at the same time, and when I started my journey, and I realized that there was such a big gap in the market with people looking for clean drinks and uh something in the low and no segment. So that's when I started my I can say my third phase, my third phase of my life, and now I've that's how I started Koki United. Uh that's that's Koki and that's me. We travel around the world and I found a beautiful story where I work with the farmers and I realized there's so much of excess fruit that goes wasted, and they were create crafting these beautiful beverages made from real fruit, and uh you you'll be stunned that there's no added sugar in that, and there's a totally different craftsmanship that they um they they have, the skills that they put in in developing the beverages was so unique and rare, and I felt this was a perfect uh product for me to get it back to the UK markets and uh and the segment that doesn't drink, and that also includes me. And when I touch my uh Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I I haven't had alcohol for I think about six years now. So it's great to see so many brands coming to the market that actually taste nice and like you say aren't packed full of sugar.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yes, you're right. So that's when uh there's a lot of influx of lono products in the market, but that's where we want to differentiate ourselves, and uh so that's where the journey started, identifying that. So it took me two years, went around the world looking for that perfect product, and I now I'm an importer from Spain and Germany, and we work directly with the farmers in Valencia and uh lovely village in uh Swabian Alps in a UNESCO protected site where we empower 400 uh farmers, and these drinks are crafted by uh the non-alcoholic is by Mr. Geiger himself, who lives there, and is also the chairman of the Meadow Food Association, and from the Spain, it is the third generation of the Antelo family where they craft these drinks. So I'm very pleased that these stories I can bring about and share to the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And so before you started to go into this industry, you were doing marketing and advertising. Correct. And so obviously, did you feel a bit more confident about that also that part of the journey that you already kind of knew about branding and promoting and marketing? Did that really help when you were starting a new business?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

So, Krista, I'm now 50. So when I started my marketing and advertising, I was in my 20s and until my late, I was in the industry. But from my almost say from 35 onwards to till about my 50th year, I was into working with uh children with special needs. So it's been a different perspective of uh of uh of my journey, and but yes, because it was my own business then, and I think a knowledge is always a knowledge, it never gets out of you. So if you knew something uh in branding or marketing, those skills definitely help. And then I had an MBA as well, which I did uh in masters in and my my specialization was in marketing and sales, but then you're looking at those days when now it's all AI and everything. So when I actually landed into the business, it's totally into the new generation of marketing and sales, which is a bit of an anxious situation for me. But I think the telling the story or the the foundation is still the same. People like to see about a year about a good story, a year about a good product. But yes, how do you manage yourself out of the clutter is definitely how your product is um is is differentiated.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

And how did you even begin to start thinking about finding suppliers? Because it's such a new thing for you to do. Where did you first look to think, okay, and and did you already know that you wanted something with sustainability and what kind of fruit you wanted and flavors? What kind uh you know, where did you even start in your head? What did you imagine?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

That's that's a good question. So uh there's a saying, what goes around comes around. So when I started my advertising agency, my first client was a farmer who left his job and started pomegranate farming in India. So 20 years later, he became a billionaire. And then he always thought I had a talent towards business, and he mentioned that when you are ready, please come to a fruit logistica exhibition and have a look at what we do. And that's when I just jumped in the flight and went to Spain, and this is how destiny works, and I wanted to do vertical farming like them, and I I love nature and I love trees, being around the trees, and I thought fruit growing was uh was a great thing to do, and especially that time it was COVID. We're just coming out of COVID and there was a lot of Brexit happening and lack of fresh fruit and from the farm to the table, kind of a concept. So I thought I would grow strawberries and a vertical farming, but that's when all the gurus of the world, the real farmers, said, please do not do that. It's the most difficult thing to work with soil. And uh he said, if there's something of a value-added product you could do, we would be more than happy because we have so much of surplus fruit that keeps growing and we don't know what to do with it. So that's that's when it struck me. And it this was in Valencia and Spain, and sorry, in Madrid, and I went around searching for innovation and about the value-added products that they were showcasing around the world. So fruit logistica is a very big, it's like a global fruit trade fair that happens, and this is where I came across um Spain and their products being displayed. First is will be the oranges in front of you, and somewhere there were the bottles. So that caught my eye. I think the color of the orange really uh appealed to me, and then I asked them, is that a real orange wine? And they said yes. I said, Wow. But that's the story doesn't uh end there. So as usual, we pick up the products, uh, samples, and I put it in a bag, and that evening I go for dinner and I lose my wallet, and and then I don't have a place to stay because I was supposed to go and um booking myself in a hotel. And I get myself to a friend's house. Uh, her name is Beatrice and Robert. They they hosted me for that night, and as an Indian courtesy, I just said, Okay, this is a bottle of wine for you. And we opened the bottle and drank, and Beatrice, being Spanish, she said, Oh my god, this is amazing! How come we don't know in Spain such wonderful products? And I think that's when it clicked because somebody who drinks a wine, a conosia of wine coming from Spain and where they know the reds are quite popular and the whites are popular, and somebody saying this orange wine was equally good made me think. And that's when my journey started. Yeah, so this is the uh the the real uh traditional orange wine, it's made with the real tangerine orange, and this is 7% low alcohol. Okay, so this is the journey started with the low alcohol for me, and then real and I realized later on that the low and the no segment was equally increasing. So this supplier does only the 0%, uh 7%, and now he's also coming up with the zero for me, and then we have the other supplier in Germany as well who is doing the zero. So that's how the journey it started from Spain, and then again, destiny um bumped into Mr. Geiger and his team uh in UK, and when they were showcasing uh in a national wedding um trade show, and I tasted the products and that's it. It was so good, and now I I work alongside with them, the UK market as well, and we are also trying to now work uh in more geographies with the low and no segment. So the story behind the lovely the zero from Germany is very touching. It's actually, if you can see the label, which this is the T-Seko that you really like, Krista. Yeah, and these are 200-year-old pear and apple trees grown in a UNESCO protective site in Swabian Alps. And Mr. Geiger, he's the Meadowfruit Association, and they've got this little symbol here that says that. And he actually empowers all the farmers there, he collects the fruit and he handcrafts each and every beverage like this. What I'm uh showing to you. This is a 0.0, it's pear apple and dargeling tea. So the story, yes, the story is this it is to the audience like you who don't want to drink alcohol. But yes, we work on the inclusion. Where this when you actually uh you pop it like a celebration, it has a same sense of it, isn't it? As well.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And then you actually pour it in a flute, it looks like a prosecco with the bubbles coming up. So you feel like you are part of the social setting and you have something more meaningful in a glass to hold, and you're not just in a social setting equally.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, it doesn't feel like your I also like your rose, mint, and apple from the same supplier, which is really lovely. In fact, I met you at Danesfield House at the Christmas fair, and I bought a bottle of that and took it to my sister's for Christmas. So that bottle that you had there, the rose, apple and mint, is the one that I bought for my uh family to take over to Christmas, and everybody loved it. And what was really lovely about it, it comes in such a beautiful bottle that it's a very nice thing to take as a gift, but also drinking it, you kind of sip it like quite a sophisticated drink. You don't sort of glug it back like it's a fizzy drink. It actually feels like you're having something that is like a wine or a champagne. I think that's what sets your drinks really apart from so many other of the drinks in the market. It's like gulp and they're gone. So talk about how the taste profiling, and you were telling me about the raspberries and the blackberries and the fruits, about how much fruit there is in there, and you really work to make sure that there's no sugar added, and the times that when the fruit is picked means that it's got less sugar content.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

So, Krista, what you had were two different uh two uh one was a rose apple mint, and then this is a lovely tea seco as well. So the story of the non-alcoholic uh beverages is that this comes from a lovely, beautiful uh Swabian Alps where there are 200-year-old pear and apple trees. The manufacturer Yogge, who crafts all these beautiful drinks, he he has a very different technique of um getting all the type of the juice from the real fruit, but they're picked up in a particular state of um in the stage of the fruit where the fructose is pretty much less. That's how they control the sugar levels. And but he also crafts the drink in a very sophisticated way where the tartness, the aromas, and the acidity and the structure of the whole drink is great for fine dining and also it pairs with food. And also it's like almost the structure of a wine. So the same kind of top notes, middle notes, in your taste the difference. So that's why though people say, hey, when you look back at the ingredients, it's an apple juice, a pear juice, or um raspberry juice. The whole structure of the way he uses the tannins and he plays around with the acidity levels of the each type of berries or the fruit is what really uh comes out in the fine bottle. And that's why you find it it's so easy to drink, but still you just can't gulp it.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you have a new white um blanc de blanc there as well that is in a lot of the fine dining restaurants. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

As we have uh, so Geiger crafts the grape zero and he also does a 0.0, which is a non-grape. So, as you know, people like you or uh many others who are probably not wanting to drink a grape uh and are looking for alternative to a grape, then yes, the raspberry and the rose apple mint and the tea secos are perfect fit for that. We also have a rhubarb and apple. But for the ones who love their grapes and probably they are just didn't didn't want to drink on that particular day, either they're driving or they're choosing not to drink, more mindful. Geiger does a lovely blanc de blanc, which is again a Chardonnay uh grape, but he de-alcoholizes the alcohol out and again he uses his own skills to craft it back into a lovely uh tasty, refreshing uh blanc de blanc, which is actually made in the same notes as um a champagne is made. So this is a beautiful served in the restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Again, the bottle again is really beautiful. Who designs your who does your artwork and the design for the bottles? Because they're so lovely.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Thanks to the uh German labels. Is it the German company that does that? Yeah, it's a German company, yeah. So again, the the story is German, the bottle is from Germany, and the product, the fruit, everything is crafted. And uh, if you look at the uh the bottle from um from Valencia, this is again an in-house uh uh Mr. Gonzalo's wife, Isabel, she's a designer, so she's done all these labels herself. So it is their own orchard, their own fruit, and their own labels gives the entire story from the orchard to the bottle, literally. So this is a lovely Aqua de Valencia. It is again a fruit mixed with the wine. It's a beautiful innovation where we are using the local traditional aqua de Valencia is a traditional recipe, but a slight re-engineering with the type of the wines that they've chosen to use or getting a fresh fruit in it without adding preservatives, is is what uh it's a ready-to-drink, non-uh alcoholic but 7% low alcohol copper.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, we we were talking before about how it's not just about the low and no alcohol drinks that you're really passionate about, it's the health side of things with not adding lots of sugar to the drinks. And this can work for adults and for children, and it's great to see that you're really mindful of what what sugar is going into things. And you said that you've been approached by some uh companies to look at making some drinks for children.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Yes. So um if you look at this, this whole bottle of an orange wine, this is uh made with real tangerine oranges, and it's the same winemaking process, uh, but the natural sugar of the orange and the yeast actually takes up the natural sugars of the fruit and turns it out into a lovely wine. And in this calories year, which is written there, it's 200 and 213 calories, and this is for the whole bottle. So that's how it is low. And even when you look at the spritz, the sweetness comes from the mosquito grape and the fruit itself, which is the orange wine, the oranges, so there's no added sugar in none of them. And not only that, if there's a QR code also that tells you what the ingredients hold because it's very important to every consumer. Please go on to the ingredients and always, if there's a QR code, please check what exactly is in the ingredients because this is where the whole story comes out and how much of preservatives or add-on uh they have added to this. And I was also mentioning about this app called Ivy.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

So interesting that there's actually ingredients in some things that aren't even listed. I find it seems illegal that you can uh get away with that. But I guess if it's a trace ingredient, they don't have to yes, uh they so they have a different categories on how they show the profiling of uh from your magnesium to your potassium to trace elements to lead.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

So it's interesting, you can just download it. I think it's free. And I just normally scan all the products because once you are I know there's a lot of mindful and conscious consumers, often the advertising or the branding goes in such a way that hey, zero means we just think everything that zero is good for health, but uh please don't take that. Uh though I promote zero, but I'm I'm one of those conscious consumers, and my journey started being a consumer first, and that's why I just go seeing that all the products we drink are mostly clean, and 90% are clean and ethical, sourced, sustainable, organic. When they say it's organic, it's a really organic certified farms, and uh the processes also all the due diligence checks uh done by the companies. So we don't do any added trigger, and uh we also have a vegan, our T Seco is a vegan, and um to all of the it's the Ivy app.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

We'll just repeat that so that people know that they can use the Ivy app to scan.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

It's called IBY, and it's got like a three-leaf logo icon, and you can actually download it on your phone and you can it's good, especially when you have people with health issues or children. We just want to make sure that what they claim that they're good, they're actually on the label as well, equally. I'm for pregnancy to say sometimes I use some herbs like wormwood, and please be very careful if there's a wormwood in your products. Uh, it's especially not uh it's quite dangerous for pregnant uh for pregnancy. And uh just try to avoid drinks or any cocktails or mocktails that have. So please watch out and ask your buttender if there's a wormwood in it. If they know.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

So talk to me about you've won so many awards, which is very well deserved. Talk to me about what it felt like winning your first award and some of the other ones that have really stood out for you that have really been.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So, Chris, I totally um we are grateful to all the suppliers who have actually manufactured such wonderful and handcrafted all these uh products. In fact, uh last week uh the Orange Spitz won an award in Valencia, and I'm so happy with the team and for the team and being a part of the Torangino family for the UK-based. The orange wine uh in the London wine awards last year won the uh won an award against the existing orange wine, which is uh in a category which is a white wine mixed with skin contact. So it was amazing that to know that this actually stood against that because this is made from real tangerine orange, whereas that was a grape. So it's interesting that people are now recognizing alternative wines or wines made with other non-grape varieties. The Blanc de Blanc and the T-Secos have also won a lot of awards in the drinks uh business. And uh thanks again to Mr. Geiger and his wonderful creations and the team. And I look forward for I'm happy for the team and I look forward for many more.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

I think you deserve it so much with what you're doing because you know you are quite a pioneer in this industry, really, with what you're doing. So sometimes that can be quite difficult. And you seem to have really made great relationships in Spain and Germany. And um you were telling me that the next country that you're starting to work with is Portugal.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

So Portugal happens uh to be the next uh sort after place, I think, because there is fruit and there is wine in the same country. When you look when if you have visited Portugal, it still goes back into its traditional drinking methods of having their lovely uh reds and whites from the Duro region and the Amrante region, which I must say they are really, really good. Though I don't drink, but I think a sip of it shows the character and the tradition. And what I really like is that they're so proud of their tradition. And uh I registered a company there now, and we are also accepted by the University of Portugal to for uh to be into the fruit and beverage innovation. So looking for working again with the farmers there, with the local fruit and the local wines, and uh and I think it never ends because that's where my Koki United is about innovation and uniting all the farmers around the world equally and finding the innovation there. So Portugal, then probably from India next, we have a lovely pomegranate wine coming from there, and a blackberry called Jamun. So we're looking for that. So end of the story is that we we love the minutes. We need to talk about Cambridge because it never ends. Yeah, so that's the global scenario, and this is the local scenario. So I'm so pleased and and um grateful for Jenny Jeffries for Writing a column on Koki and our story in their rural life magazine, and uh in that she mentions uh a lot of the hard work that goes behind, and and she was very kind enough to introduce me to a few of her former friends, but they are quite famous, they have done a lot of contribution already in their field, and uh, she's now we are trying to talk to how we could get a lot of fruit from Cambridge, and there's a lot of fruit wastage that's happening because in that region grows a lot of pears and apples again. But having said that, uh, seeing these types of innovations, we could always pair the local fruit and turn it into a lovely beverage, whether it's a low alcohol or a zero percent. Uh, and what I'm really keen on doing is there are a lot of plenty of local farms around the UK. And uh, Jenny has mentioned, and we also like a Peter Lee farm, there's there's one in uh the Chilterns and in the Oxford, there's one more farm, uh Refractory, where we've done our Christmas markets there. There are about 40 acres of farms and they actually grow fruit and they they're very keen on it's just not a fruit juice, but then we're looking at crafting. If I could collaborate with all these local farmers and their fruit, just imagine what beautiful uh recipes you could go and craft. And I'm happy for contributing if that day comes back to England and you know the country, and it's nothing like it. Because every farmer around the world has a story to tell, and I think it's really good that as long as you're doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

The fact that you're working with waste in such a creative and delicious way, it's a win-win, isn't it, for everybody. And to know that there's there's farmers that could enhance what they're doing, it's so difficult for farming at the moment, and knowing that there's another industry that they could potentially be working in, surely that's a great opportunity for them.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Correct, Krista. And also I want to make uh just uh to notify people here. People think that when you talk about agri waste or fruit waste, it's not a fruit that's fallen on the ground and or it's gone just um dirty on the floor, but it's a fruit that's actually excess on, you know, it's an excess fruit that's grown and it's still uh in you know hanging on the tree, but it's plucked and then it's crafted into something else. So traditionally people have been using the fruit for making jams or any other kind of uh the cider making, all this has been a very traditional method. But now it's the innovation that's come in. Okay, there's a lot of fruit that's wasted, but then it's just not plopped and gone bad. It's a real good fruit, export quality fruit sometimes, like the Spanish ones. They all go into the export, but neither is it the wonky fruit that goes into the market. It's just that the perfect fruit, but it is probably 22 tons have been exported and there's one tonne still lying there, unexported. So that's what they the quality fruit that they use.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

And did you know that there was as much of this product available when you started making the wine? Did you think, oh, I'm not gonna find enough product, or you know, are you surprised about how much there is available to you?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So that's a good question again, because sometimes uh when you work with um, like how a grape has a DOC, uh, I choose to be working in locations that has got the DOC to that particular fruit as well. So, as you know, uh oranges are famous from Valencia and Sicily region in Italy. If anybody has gone to Valencia and walking on the roads, you will see orange trees all across, and you will never run out of the fruit. So for sure I knew when I was working with the farmers here from Valencia, I said no, the fruit will always be on the ground and in plenty and in abundance. So I'm sure we'll never run out of oranges. And same goes with the uh the apple and pear trees in Swabian Alps. I think it's it's been there for centuries, the 200 years uh old trees. They just fruit every year, and it's always going to be there in that region. We'll never run out of that fruit.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

And it's just finding new products to make, which so that is why I'm very keen on any new product.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

It is um I I work directly with the DOC of that region and that fruit. So it's local, it's traditional because if you notice the water, the sun, if it's by the sea, all the salt, everything goes, uh makes a character of that particular fruit. Why a Valentian orange is more famous than uh maybe any other orange in the world is because of the sea and the land and the kind of the salty bits, the salty air and the mountainous region. All that comes in for the taste of that fruit. That's why it's very important.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And I'm looking for I wish you all the luck because I personally am passionate about this industry and this category. I will completely follow your progress and it's gonna grow and grow.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yes, I just want to say one last thing is that uh one thank you to all who have actually um to Marlowe, especially because I think people love the rhubarb there very much and the T-Secos. And not only that, people who have met me and believe in the journey, like yourself and others, and I'm really grateful for giving this platform. But yes, the bigger picture is still there because one day I just want to craft a drink that suits for irrespect of the age group, or whether it's a child or for a pregnant mother, and so I'm just looking around the world for that beautiful, rich drinks I could create which are non-alcoholic for them so that the whole world can be inclusive and we can all raise the glass. Yes, the glass and celebrate our lives in a more clean and organic way. As you say with a toast to your good health.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yes, to your it's even better health if you're drinking something non alcoholic. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

So be mindful what you're consuming, but then yes, definitely. Yes, enjoy the Cocoa as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Oh it's nice we had a little extra furry face in there today. Thanks so much. Bye bye. Thank you, Krista.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Bye bye.