It is not always easy to come up with a great beverage business idea. but whether you are a beginner looking to create a side gig to satisfy your passion or to jump start a company to gain a foothold in the beverage market, there are a few things you need to know.
This article will provide all you need to know about formulating and running a beverage business that does not involve alcohol.
Popular Beverage Business Formats for Beginners
There are different ways to operate and get your beverage business off the ground, and you need to understand them before picking an idea. Here are some of the most popular options.
Street Vendors/Carts/Trucks
Not being tied down by a fixed establishment, mortgages and rents is an enticing choice for beginners. This is great for a starting beverage business because your revenue would not be as high as larger ones who can shoulder the cost.
Engaging in this type of business is especially good for beginners for many reasons:
- Low initial investments: The cost for a coffee/juice cart is astronomically small compared to getting a property for your business. And the small carts/trucks mean you won’t have to spend as much on fancy equipment or expensive safety features. (Granted it is much harder to secure a bank loan, but it is easier to just get small funding from other sources)
- Flexibility: If a spot doesn’t have many customers, you can just move (after getting a proper license, of course). You can experiment as much as you want, until you can find a suitable location. You also don’t need to spend months scouting locations while not being able to sell anything.
Virtual Restaurants
The gig economy has given food deliveries apps like Uber Eats and Doordash a massive boost. This, in turn, has created the ‘virtual restaurant’ movement, where restaurants and cafés only sell through online delivery services or pick-up, without a dine-in option.
While many beginners still choose this option, it still has major drawbacks that you need to keep in mind.
Upsides:
- Low investment: you can operate out of your own place or hire a cheap, shared virtual kitchen to save costs.
- Large customer base: Partnering with giant services like Uber Eats gives you access to the millions of users on their platform, which can drastically increase your revenue.
Downsides:
- Registration fees and commissions: Some platforms require a sign up fee, some do not, regardless, the amount is still tolerable for most aspiring businesses. But the larger issue is registration and delivery fees (usually calculated on each order), which can really add up and affect how you operate.
- Digital marketing/SEO knowledge: Operating online requires a lot of technological knowledge. You must know how to effectively promote your products and optimize the store to gain a better foothold on the platforms or the search engine. This is an essential skill that can be very hard to learn.
Traditional dine-ins
This is the most familiar option (and maybe the one you are thinking of while planning your business). It may be a fulfilling, lifelong dream, but the stakes are much higher, and chances of success are slim.
You can build a coffee shop, juice bar, tea shop, etc. But there are so many things you need to keep in mind to succeed:
- Staffing and personnel costs
- Mortgages or rents
- Equipment purchases, decoration costs
- Marketing strategies
- Location
- Creating suitable customer experiences
Nonetheless, a solid strategy and goal will easily turn your store into a profitable business and give your life so much more meaning. You can also combine this with a delivery option to maximize revenues.
Private Label Brands
For the more ambitious ones out there who want to build a household name for themselves, building a private label brand is a way to go. This is a much more nuanced topic and needs further details. Read our article to find out more about: white label vs private label services, and what you need to look for in a private label service.
If you already have a beverage idea and want to get them onto the shelf as soon as possible, why not leave a message and get advice from us.
Ideas for A Small/Local Beverage Business
Let’s say you just want to open a nice beverage business in your local area, to sell the drinks you like or just have a place to socialize with your neighbors. You can combine these ideas with the business models above to gain the most out of your love for beverages.
Coffee cart
Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the world, and is sought after by many as a way to be more productive and alert. And right now, specialty, high-quality coffee is being sought after by many aficionados, who are willing to pay top-dollar for quality. So starting a coffee cart focusing on artisanal coffee is a no-brainer.
There are many advantages to choosing this option:
- Non-seasonal: coffee sources don’t depend much on fruit seasons and everyone drinks lots of coffee year-round, so customer traffic is very stable.
- You can focus on crafting home-made, home-roasted or home-ground coffee that offer great taste at a lower price (thanks to lower costs).
- You can position yourself near office blocks where demand for the brain-boosting substance is massive.
And now, what do you need to get ready?
- Initial investments: You will need around $5000-$7000 in start-up fund to buy the most expensive equipment – the cart itself, then a few hundred bucks to cover some essential coffee making tools. After that, you just need to worry about day-to-day operations and ingredient prices.
- High quality bean source: Start from the bottom up, your beans will probably be your selling point. So be sure to get the best beans, roasted and ground to perfection for the best cups of coffee.
- Licensing and legal requirements: Each jurisdiction and area has their own zoning and permits requirement, make sure to secure the right ones so you won’t get towed away.
Coffee shop
Opening a café seems like the most popular option, because it is very fulfilling to people who want to create a vibrant social fabric around their business. And while it may seems daunting with many challenges, those unfazed by the challenge will definitely feel a great deal of satisfaction from their realized dreams.
To become a serious owner of a coffee shop, here is a list for you to check:
- Pick the right location: A good view and a good venue will definitely draw customers to your shop and get them to chill there much longer.
- Design your space: A good coffee shop can invoke customers’ feelings. And to do that, your interior design must be exceptionally exquisite.
- Find good coffee suppliers: No matter how much you invest in everything else, you need to offer good drinks so that customers will remain loyal to your brand. This also means curating a special and unique menu.
- Hire the right people: You can choose to do it by yourself or employ help. But bear in mind that a good barista can make all the difference to your customer’s day.
Bubble tea stand/shop
Originated in Taiwan, bubble tea has swept over the world as the newest beverage superstar. Now, bubble tea businesses are popping up all over the world. This is a golden opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and bring the crowd-favorite drink to your area.
Whether you choose to open a walk-in boba tea store or a boba tea stand, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Brand building: For such a hyped drink like boba tea, customers will most likely choose to engage with brands that are on trend and can really pop on social media. You will need to design an eye-catching logo and build a solid marketing plan so that everyone will want to engage with your store.
- Menu formulation: Bubble tea is highly seasonal, in that it is predominantly enjoyed cold and iced. To best capture the market, you will need to develop seasonal menus, e.g hot, cold or fruit drinks to satisfy customers year-round.
- Franchising vs homemade: Buying a bubble tea franchise is a good option, because you can take advantage of their brands, menus, etc and just focus on making a profit. But it is usually very costly and requires large investments. By contrast, you can choose to develop your own brand, and take control of everything. It’s up to you to decide.
Juice/Smoothie Business
Even during the economic downturns of the COVID pandemic, the juice bar scene still experienced a strong growth, and is showing no signs of slowing down. This is because the pandemic has caused people to seek out more on health-conscious life choices like: natural remedies, organic produce, healthy food and drinks.
Customers will flock to the store for a freshly squeezed cup of juice or special blends that can’t be found on the shelves. You can invest in freshly procured ingredients or industrialized presses and blenders to give your customers an experience that they cannot get at home.
This is the most flexible option for business owners, as you can choose any format of operation you want:
- Dine-in: A specialty juice shops for friends to chat and hang-out
- Take-out only: A small juice bar with high quality and low operational costs
- Online deliveries: For all the busy folks who want to be healthy
- Juice cart/truck: Take your drinks to where customers need them the most
Tea room
The current rise of healthy drinks makes tea businesses more attractive than ever before. And besides opening a regular tea and coffee shop, you can curate a much more exclusive experience by opening a specialty tea room.
There are many types of tea rooms to pick, like:
- Victorian tea room – for an afternoon tea break with exquisite English snacks.
- Zen/Chinese tea room – serving special Eastern tea, coupled with traditional tea culture performances.
This will require a bit more effort, as you need to have so much knowledge about tea culture and tea performances (alongside a hefty budget for a venue). But if you succeed, you will definitely turn into a landmark that will draw in visitors from all over.
Take your Beverage Business Ideas to the Next Level
After you have established your-self as a credible player in the beverage market, you can begin to expand your business – to bring your product onto supermarket shelves and to the hands of millions of people.
You can open your own production facility, or become a private label brand – a very beginner friendly idea. Here are some of the easiest private label packaged beverage ideas for you to try.
Packaged Fruit Juice
There are many ways you can go about this. For instance, as a successful fruit juice business, you can simply bottle up what you make in the store and put them in some sort of refrigerators to let customers pick. But these fruity drinks have a relatively short shelf-life, and the cost of making them is not cheap, you won’t gain much profit from this.
A private label manufacturer will be of great help. They usually have quality fresh fruit suppliers, large production scales and special formulation to increase product shelf-life (without affecting the taste too much). Their product also comes cheaper than what you can make in-house.
As a result, you can easily enter large retail chains, boost your brand recognition and increase your profit margin.
Or, if you are an entrepreneur who wants to get into the healthy drinks market, this method will save you a lot of money and time growing your business.
Packaged Tea Drink
Packaged tea drinks are especially suitable to start-ups, as they account for a large segment of the packaged beverage market. And wherever you go, there are always capable manufacturers who can mass produce them. Customer demand is also stable due to them having a wide variety of options, while being relatively easy to drink and refreshing.
You can produce bottled bubble tea drinks, fruit teas or other original tea beverages (like oolong, black tea, earl gray, etc.). These are especially popular among younger generations nowadays.
Packaged Coconut Water
Also another healthy drink gaining traction in recent years, coconut water is also a great option of packaged beverage for starting entrepreneurs. As the market is relatively new and there aren’t a lot of players yet, this is a great chance for a newcomer to quickly rise through the ranks.
Great coconut suppliers are usually located in the tropical regions of the world, so it is best to find manufacturers who are located in these regions (namely South-East Asia, the Caribbean and South America). They can give you the best quality coconut water product with a very reasonable price.
Ready-to-Drink Coffee
For the busy lifestyle nowadays, not many people can have the time to go to a coffee shop and wait for an artisanal cup to be made. Also, not many people can comfortably afford the price tag of a high quality one.
So, a large, reputable coffee shop or chain can start producing them en masse, to give others a taste of their authentic cups, much more conveniently and at much lower prices. That’s why ready-to-drink coffee is so profitable.
It is also a go-to choice for many beverage start-up brands, as the market is gigantic and there are many niches to occupy.
Energy Drink
Energy drink is one of the fastest growing segments of the beverage market. The demand for an energy-boosting concoction is rising in all aspects of life. From athletes, casual runners to office workers in demanding professions like programming, VFX, etc.
Even though the market is dominated by major players like Monster, Red Bull or Mountain Dew, customers are still craving for creative and original solutions.
Tan Do – A Leading White Label Beverage Company
At Tan Do, we strive to bring the best values to customers using our white label beverage service.
With over 20 years of experience, we offer over 500+ white label drinks that have been success-proven in 5 continents and 50+ countries. Our white label beverage catalog includes: Fruit Juice, Coconut Drink, Energy Drink, Milk Drink, Tea Drink, Aloe Vera Drink, Coffee and Nata de Coco.
Download our product catalog to find out more.
Tan Do’s white label beverage service will give you many advantages:
- Low MOQ
- Diverse choice of flavor and packaging styles
- Free label designs
- Unlimited, free sample
- Large supply capability
We also achieved many crucial international certificates like: Halal Jakim, HACCP, FSSC Certificate, FDA Registration, ISO 22000, Halal GCC. This will help you deliver your products to stores across the globe.
Read more: Why should you choose Tan Do?
Conclusion
That’s all you need to know about beverage flavor trends of 2022. Hope that this article can provide some knowledge and help you on your way to create a successful beverage business.
If you have any questions or want to find a suitable OEM/ODM beverage manufacturer, feel free to contact Tan Do.
We are more than glad to help.
