Reliance buys majority stake in Naturedge

MUMBAI: Reliance Consumer Products (RCPL) bought a majority stake in a joint venture with Naturedge Beverages, marking its foray into the healthy functional beverages space. Naturedge Beverages is from the house of the 108year-old Baidyanath Group, which has a legacy of making Ayurvedic products.The acquisition comes at a time when there is a shift among consumers towards healthier choices, a trend which picked up post-Covid. Besides giving RCPL a leg up in the nascent functional beverages segment, it will also broaden the company’s overall beverages portfolio.Naturedge, founded in 2018 by Siddhesh Sharma, a thirdgeneration entrepreneur from Baidyanath Group, is the maker of Shunya—a herb-infused functional packaged beverage with zero sugar and zero calories. Shunya will now come under RCPL’s fold as it steps up competition against beverage majors such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo by betting on newer categories that may have the potential to grow bigger going ahead amid evolving consumption patterns.