Will Mango Lassi Become as Popular as Samosas in the United States?

November 24, 2022

From around mid-November, the attention of Americans turns to what to serve and eat at the Thanksgiving meal. Today, as families and friends gather, hosts and invitees add a dish or a drink to represent the foreign places of birth of immigrant relatives and friends who join in this year’s meal.

Monsieur Singh’s Mango Lassi for $5.49 was among the signs displayed on boards on the sidewalk outside Agata & Valentina, an upscale food store on New York City’s upper east side. While there are some Indians working as nurses and doctors at the hospitals nearby, the display for the Indian drink was more to lure shoppers walking by the store.  

Each 8-ounce (oz) bottle of Singh’s Lassi, according to Singh’s site, is made by blending one Alphonso mango with yogurt from milk, from grass fed cows at a farm in upstate New York. It has “No Sugar Added, All Natural, Low fat, No rBST, Non GMO, Gluten free, Kosher” (for Jews who eat only Kosher foods.)

Lassi, especially mango lassi, is the most popular item ordered at Indian restaurants in the U.S., after Punjabi samosas (potatoes with peas in a fried wrap.) Not surprisingly, besides Singh - whose bottle sells for $3.99 on its website - there are several other vendors selling lassi in the U.S. There is Dah! Lassi, $6.49 for 32 oz, and Joy Lassi and Gopi Lassi both $2.99 per 16 oz bottle. Also, Desi Natural Alphonso Mango Lassi, a 16 oz bottle for $2.19, sold online by Patel Brothers. The company also runs more than 50 stores catering to Indians in the United States, mainly in the Northeast and Florida.

All vendors say their mango lassis are made with Alphonso mangoes. This mango variety has “Succulent saffron-coloured flesh that's smooth and buttery: imagine a cross between peach, nectarine, apricot and melon with notes of honey and citrus. But better,” is how a writer in The Guardian described it. Revered as the king of fruits by Indians, the best Alphonso mangoes are grown in orchards along the western coast of India, just south of Mumbai.  

Monsieur Singh was founded in 2011 by Karan Gera, who grew up in India and calls himself Lassi Wallah (lassi vendor). Last year, while apparently still running the business, he joined Deutsch, a New York advertising agency, as the Group Planning Director, according to his LinkedIn profile. Since 2004, he has worked at advertising companies, mostly in New York, including the McCann Worldgroup and Grey Group.

He branded the lassi as Monsieur Singh, following a visit to learn Ayurveda in Kapurthala, India. The former Maharajah (King) of the region in Punjab was a “big Francophile,” Gera told The New York Times.

While popular among Indians in the U.S., mango lassi, or any other lassi, has yet to get wide distribution. In 2016, Singh’s lassi was sold in six of the eight Whole Foods stores in New York City, founder Karan Gera told The New York Times. The upscale food stores, which are owned by Amazon, no longer sells the drink. Monsieur Singh though is sold in more than 90 mostly small, independent stores in New York City, according to the company’s website. 

Since it is sold as a yogurt, Singh’s Lassi faces intense competition from other, much larger yogurt vendors at the big food retail chains. The yogurt isle at Whole Foods, for instance, has dozens of yogurts with different flavors and prices, including a wide range sold by Dannon and Chobani. While Dannon is owned by Danone, a French public company with a market value of $32 billion, Chobani, founded by Hamdi Ulukaya a Turkish American, has an estimated valuation of $2.2 billion. So, even if lassis become popular in the U.S., it would be easy for Danone or Chobani to sell competing products since they have the distribution clout with the major retailers.

In contrast to lassi, several varieties of samosas are available at the Whole Foods stores in New York, San Francisco and some other major American cities. The stores offer samosas cooked in-house as one of the items on their daily buffet. They also sell frozen samosas, with Whole Foods 365 store brand label, priced at $3.49 for a 7.5 ounces package; frozen chicken tikka masala and Punjabi Samosas - each for $8.39 for 10 oz - made by Sukhi, a Hayward, California based company founded by Indian born Sukhi Singh;  and a 5 oz $4.99 samosa wrap of spiced potatoes, peas and tofu in a soft-baked wheat tortilla, by Amy’s Kitchen, a California based food vendor founded by Rachel and Andy Berliner.

Gera’s mango lassi is “gold,” says Vikas Khanna, an Indian chef in New York, on Monsieur Singh’s website. Khanna, who earned a Michelin Star, adds, “It’s my favorite. I buy it often. Soo proud.” Will Gera, who faces tough competition in both the lassi and yogurt markets, figure out a way to become the Maharajah of Lassis?  

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