Like her childhood idol, Warrior Princess Xena, Sana Khouja is a born fighter. She grew up in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona, ??in a family originally from Morocco. She combined her studies with jobs like cleaning floors and giving refresher classes to neighbors. Thanks to her good academic results, she received a scholarship from the Esade business school, she trained first in Barcelona and then in New York. Already fully in the world of work, she worked at the Mas Perinet del Priorat winery.
He was fascinated by the world of wine, but Khouja’s fighting spirit pushed him to do something different. She found the answer in a friend’s fridge: she came in a can. The pandemic gave him the necessary time to shape the project.
In mid-2020, Khouja founded Mindful Drinkers, the company that owns the Zeena canned wine brand. “In Arabic it means beauty and at the same time it is reminiscent of the name of the warrior princess Xena”, explains Khouja. From Barcelona, ??Zeena buys wine from local producers and packages it in aluminum cans protected by a special internal film. The firm has four young wines with vegan and organic certification, devoid of additives and added sugars.
Khouja has managed to position its canned wine in the horeca channel (hotels, restaurants and cafeterias). It can also be purchased through Amazon and the brand’s website. It is sold in Japan, Mexico, Finland, the Ivory Coast, Norway, and Andorra, and the entrepreneur is processing its formal entry into the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, and Colombia. On the other hand, in order to be able to sell to festivals and musical events, Zeena has opened a financing round of 500,000 euros, which is added to the 380,000 euros of investment provided so far. If it manages to gain a foothold in this market niche, Zeena could close 2023 with a turnover of more than 400,000 euros.
