Page 14 - MASALA LITE ISSUE 86 | NOVEMBER2017
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Beer
NECESSITIES
Tech head turned entrepreneur,
Sajan Khanijou’s new business
venture, Beerlicious is ready to
take the Thai market by storm.
BY DEBOSHREE BANERJEE
Sajan Khanijou’s new business enterprise, Beerlicious
specialises in importing and distributing carefully selected,
award-winning beers from around the world. This rapidly
growing brand is one to watch out for, as it is already
brewing up momentum in the competitive craft beer
market in Thailand.
Bit by the entrepreneurial bug, Sajan disliked
the idea of working for someone else and so he
decided to take the plunge into the start-up world.
His inspiration stemmed from his desire to branch
out from his family’s textile fi rm, Jack and Dave
and restaurant business, Indian by Nature.
Originally from Pattaya, Sajan spent six years
in Australia pursuing two Bachelor degrees in
Business Management and Information Technology,
and then working to gain suffi cient experience
in IT consulting. He later returned home to start
his own IT consultation and development fi rm
called Accelerate Asia. However, he now sees this
endeavour as his part-time work, as his full-time job
at Beerlicious has more potential for growth.
He came up with the idea to import beer with his
brother, Karan Khanijou and university friend, Rajeev
Jayakumar, who are now his business partners. “We studied
together in Australia and drank a lot of Australian beer,” he
reminisces with a smile. “So we decided to import our favourite
products and venture into this fi eld.” The fi rst shipment arrived in June
2017, and Beerlicious was successfully launched with six imported brands
from Bridge Road Brewers.
Since then, the company has branched out
to include UK-based products by establishing
a contract with Molson Coors, the world’s
seventh largest brewing company in volume.
Sajan considers this accomplishment to be one
of the biggest so far.
“Everything we sell
is based on our taste
because we have
to like what
we provide.”
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