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Jagatjoti Singh Khalsa & His Altar Ego
MATTHEW KISH
It’s a good sign when an interview with an entrepreneur veers off course.
It means the entrepreneur's company makes sense and I don't need to spend an hour trying to understand it. It also frees me up to address interesting topics about the entrepreneur's background and personality.
My conversation two weeks ago with Jagatjoti Singh Khalsa veered off course within minutes.
Jagatjoti Singh founded Portland-based Altar, a beverage company that makes organic non-alcoholic drink mixers. Each can be served chilled or mixed with alcohol.
As a former waiter at a high-end restaurant, I know Altar's product fills a huge niche. Diners want a nice drink to accompany a celebratory meal.
The non-alcoholic options are limited. Club soda? Ginger ale? A virgin margarita?
Altar's mixers, on the other hand, are made with fresh, organic ingredients, many of them first grown in Jagatjoti’s backyard garden.
Photographer Cathy Cheney and I tasted Chi, a mixer made with green tea, white ginseng, astragalus, kola nut and watercress. The drink is complex, rich and tasty. It's easy to see why high-end restaurants like the St. Regis in Atlanta already have it on the menu.
A skilled conversationalist, Jagatjoti wove Picasso, Rumi, Prince, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Frost and Mississippi gospel choir music into our one-hour visit.
He also talked about innovative ways to address hunger and his photography book about Down syndrome.
And, oh yes, Altar. We talked about that as well.
It's an impressive company.
Jagatjoti’s products have only been on shelves for a few months. He already predicts $1 million in first-year sales.
It wouldn't surprise me if he does for drink mixers what Steve Smith did for tea.
JAGATJOTI SINGH KHALSA
Jagatjoti is the Managing Director of Heyoka, a multidiscipline creative and strategic firm. Prior to founding Heyoka, he co-owned Tara Home, a retail chain of furniture stores which he and his partner sourced and manufactured in India, China, Tibet, Mongolia and Thailand. He operated full manufacturing facilities in both China and India. He developed his career in the natural foods industry at KIIT, the parent company of Yogi Tea, Golden Temple, and Akal Security. Starting as an intern at Yogi Tea, he eventually landed on their five-person corporate management team where he assisted the KIIT companies in their growth, from $125MM to nearly $350MM at the time of his exit.
Jagotjoti helped to move Yogi Tea from the third tea in Natural Foods category to number one. Additionally, he assisted in laying the strategy for the long-term branding development and marketing campaigns for all the Golden Temple brands, including Golden temple granola, Peace Cereals and Sweet Home amongst others. He helped pioneer Yogi Tea into the first fully-organic medicinal tea line by building with their partner company ForesTrade by sourcing ingredients for brands such as Oregon Chai, Smuckers, Frontier Co-Op, Seeds of Change/Masterfoods/Mars, Spice Hunter, General Mills to name a few. He was the president of Sprout Foods, a baby food concern developed and launched by Max MacKenzie and his best friend Tyler Florence.
Jagatjoti resides in Portland, Oregon with his wife Sat Kaur Khalsa and his daughter Pritam. He is the author of Altar Your Space, a guide to the restorative home and a photography book, I'm Down with You, which features the beauty and lovingness in the eyes of those with Down syndrome
[Courtesy: Portland Business Journal. Edited for sikhchic.com]
July 5,2013