Beanly | 83Brewing new ideas with BeanlyCoffee start-up Beanly discovered a more fexible way to create new product packaging when it shifted from conventional print technologies to HP Indigo digital printing. Akanksha Meena reportsvid coffee lovers and good friends Rahul Jain and Samayesh Khanna quit their nine-to-fve jobs to follow their passion and start a coffee business, Beanly, in 2018.A‘We come from very different backgrounds, but what was common between the two of us, was our love for coffee,’ Khanna says.‘There were just a few options to have freshly brewed coffee in the Indian market back in the day – buying instant coffee or going to a premium café where it would be expensive,’ he adds.Beanly introduced hot brew coffee bags for freshly brewed on-the-go coffee. ‘We were pioneers, back in 2018 and India’s frst hot brew specifc company.’ Today Beanly has more than 22 SKUs in its product portfolio. Out of the four product categories that the company offers, Khanna Beanly instant coffee jarssees a competitive advantage in a few of them. ‘We are still currently India’s frst specially optimized manufacturing factory for hot brew coffee with near zero “We are India’s frst specially [competition] in India. We made hot brewing easy and a thing in the country. A lot of brands have built their products in the optimized manufacturing category with us, so this was one of the most exciting categories that we started with,’ Khanna explains.factory for hot brew coffee with The brand has recently launched nitrogen-infused coffee cans for on-the-go consumers. ‘We are the frst ones to be offering Nitro near zero opposition in India. coffee in a can in India, and all these products have been built We made hot brewing easy and ground up in India.’ Beanly is preparing to launch at least four to fve new SKUs a thing in the country”within the calendar year. Dedication to innovation which digital solved instantly. As compared to conventional A large part of Beanly’s journey has been dedicated to creating new technologies, our product launch timelines were signifcantly and unique products. Primarily, it is an online-frst brand because reduced to seven days when we switched to HP Indigo digital this gives the company better and quicker access to consumers. The technology,’ Khanna highlights. middleman cost is eliminated. Launching new products and adding new forms of packaging ‘It also helps you get eyeballs faster and cheaper than traditional became easier for Beanly. The co-founders could now create custom models,’ Khanna says. packaging for market research as well. Back when it was established, Beanly was using conventional ‘The minimum run quantity came down. It was not possible printing technologies for its labels and packaging. The brand’s anywhere else. I am inclined towards digital as a solution for the labels and packaging require several media including matte BOPP long run as well, primarily because it has a much lower carbon laminate, PET laminate, shrink sleeves and SPF sheets. footprint. We are actively moving into a time where we are bound ‘There was the challenge of media when using conventional to be conscious about what we print, consume, and how we technologies. When you print on different media, the outputs operate,’ Khanna adds.can be very different in terms of color and brand consistency,’ Savings in capital expenditure, which came with the ability Khanna notes. to print short runs were used to increase effciencies on the This became an obstacle when it came to launching new operational side.products in new packaging formats. With no option to print short Beanly will be launching new products soon and sampling is done runs, the start-up had to wait 30-60 days for its labels. on HP Indigo digital press. The full run of nitro coffee can labels are Gravure required cylinders, which added to the company’s also printed on the HP press. Capex. ‘In our early journey, we needed to add new variants and ‘Our costing is still optimized on digital and is my preferred mode when we launched new products it was a big time for us. We were of printing.’tight on timelines and gravure wouldn’t give quick deliveries,’ The company will soon introduce in-mold labels on its Khanna explains. new products.Flexo took 10-20 days and it limited Beanly in terms of the ‘We haven’t fully utilized HP for brand recognition yet. The larger number of artwork iterations it could have in the same print run. advantages were faster launch, less Capex, low print runs, quick The co-founders discovered HP Indigo digital print technology turnaround time and market testing,’ Khanna concludes. when their label converter ran tests and samples on the press. The brand instantly preferred the digital quality. With digital printing, the start-up found a considerable advantage For more news from the Indian label and packaging of quicker timelines and color consistency across different media. market, visit www.labelsandlabeling.com/contributors/‘When we were starting, costs and timelines were a constraint akanksha-meenaOct - Dec 2022