BC Business
The Vancouver-based beverage company is officially launching in January 2023.
Nothing beats a drink at the end of a tough day. But alcohol inevitably takes a toll on us, and it’s a toll that Vancouverite Gagan Grewal stopped wanting to pay. With over a decade of executive experience across industries spanning recruitment, marketing, private equity investment and more, Grewal is set to launch his own CBD-infused beverage company, Mindset Beverages, with four different flavours of kombucha.
“We want to be the replacement drink for alcohol and other things that just don’t make you feel good,” he says.
Grewal was working in private banking at Scotia Wealth Management when COVID hit. During lockdown, he found himself spending more time at home and wanted to experiment with how CBD made him feel. What initially caught Grewal’s attention is how CBD can be used to treat different health complications. He was blown away by the story of his friend’s son, who has autism spectrum disorder and who was using a good dose of CBD to help control his seizures.
“We really want to help reduce the stigma around CBD specifically because if we can create emulsions that have molecular binding agents in them, we can have it target a certain part of your body,” he explains.
Grewal’s passion project slowly brewed into a viable business model in 2021. He formed a CBD-infused beverage company (which now has four staff, a downtown head office and a manufacturing facility) with a focus on kombucha not only to cater to conscious consumers like himself who are interested in better-for-you beverages, but also to fill what he felt was a tea-shaped hole in the market.
Mindset Beverages. Founder and CEO Gagan Grewal
“There are so many alcoholic seltzers out there, and even in the cannabis space, most of them are seltzers. That innovation has just been lacking,” he contends. More than anything, he wanted to get away from alcohol—to be able to socialize without feeling hung out to dry the next day.
But manufacturing was a challenge. Finding the right space and equipment to make cannabis-infused beverages involves upfront capital expense that Grewal found to be higher than, say, for edibles because edibles don’t need as much space or equipment. The founder credits the network he built from his background in private banking for helping him navigate tight rules in the industry and landing him an 800 sqft facility today.
Mindset created a stable water-based CBD emulsion that disperses evenly in the drink so that your first and last sip have the same dosage. Now the company is starting to look into sustained release, similar to how extra strength Tylenol kicks in in 15 minutes but lasts for eight hours. “I realized that it was the particle size of the active ingredient that allowed to control that efficacy,” says Grewal. “So, we’re starting to work on things like, if we break down the particle size of the CBD, and then we layer it in so there’s different particle sizes in our emulsion, can we control how soon it hits your body?”
Turns out you can. With its own proprietary emulsion, Grewal promises that Mindset’s drinks taste exactly like their names (including fruit jam, ginger turmeric, pink grapefruit and orange rooibos): “It’s not a syrup or something, we’re actually brewing the real teas and putting them into our beverages. The products will be available for purchase in January 2023.
All of Mindset’s partnerships serve its goal of being a reliable CBD-specific beverage brand and simultaneously challenges the stigma around cannabis. It works with the applied sciences division at Langara (the same college Grewal studied criminology and marketing and sales at after moving to the city from Vancouver Island in 1999) to test its emulsion. It also partners with B.C.-based charities like Kids Up Front (where Mindset donates tickets to the organization’s program) and Pacific Family Autism Network (where Mindset funds supplies for the organization’s creative program) as a way to support arts and creativity.
Grewal is looking forward to expanding the company’s offerings to include freezies and other items: “I think that with the right product, the right dosing and the right CBD, it can help a lot of people.”