The Hindu Business Line : Amul all set to storm Mother Dairy bastion

TAKING its battle with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) a step ahead, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF or Amul) is now all set to launch fresh liquid milk in the national Capital, currently the bastion of the former's Mother Dairy brand.

"The launch of our freshly packed milk in Delhi will take place over the next week. To begin with, we will sell two variants - - full cream and toned - - at Rs 18 and Rs 14 per litre, respectively," Mr R.S. Sodhi, General Manager (Marketing), GCMMF, told Business Line.

While the pricing is no different from that of Mother Dairy, the Amul full-cream milk will, however, contain 6.5 per cent fat, as against the usual 6 per cent. "Besides offering extra cream at the same price, our other USP is that we will be supplying fresh buffalo milk and not milk recombined from powder or white butter", Mr Sodhi claimed.

GCMMF will source the milk from its Mehsana district union dairy. The milk will be transported in insulated road tankers to a plant in the outskirts of Delhi at Ballabgarh, owned by the Kolkata-based Kwality Dairy India Ltd and taken on lease by the Mehsana union.

"The loose milk will be pasteurised and packed in pouches in the Ballabgarh unit, prior to being despatched to the Delhi market," Mr Sodhi said.

GCMMF's proposed foray into Delhi's liquid milk market is the latest development in the ongoing bitter battle involving the two cooperative giants. Amul, in May 2002, launched its ice-cream in Delhi (hitherto a Mother Dairy's citadel) and the latter, in January 2003, entered the table butter segment (where Amul is the unquestioned market leader).

Mr Sodhi, on his part, maintained, "We are not in competition with Mother Dairy as far as liquid milk sales in Delhi is concerned." The 40 lakh litre per day (LLPD) liquid milk market in Delhi is currently dominated by Mother Dairy (18 LLPD), with the other organised sector brands such as Paras (3 LLPD), the state-owned Delhi Milk Scheme (2.5 LLPD), Gopaljee (1-1.5 LLPD), Parag (80,000 LPD) and Britannia (30-40,000 LPD) being way behind.

"We were till last year supplying, on an average, one LLPD of fresh milk to Mother Diary in addition to the annual offtake of about 18,000 tonnes of milk powder and white butter. Since Mother Dairy did not renew this contract from this year, we lost an assured one LLPD market. By launching Amul milk in Delhi, we are mainly seeking to recover this lost market," he explained.

GCMMF is already selling 3-4,000 LPD of UHT (long shelf life) liquid milk in Delhi under the Amul Gold and Taaza brands, which are priced in the Rs 22-24 per litre range. The entry into the regular, fresh milk category is seen as part of Amul's strategy to become a national player in this segment as well, in response to Mother Dairy's own expansionary designs.

Till recently, Amul was confining liquid milk sales only to Gujarat, while marketing products such as butter, cheese, ice-creams and powders on a national scale. But the impending threat from Mother Dairy has forced it to explore new liquid milk markets in Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, Indore and the Udaipur-Jodhpur belt of Rajasthan. "Today, fresh milk sales account for about 50 per cent of the 52-53 LLPD milk that we procure. Of this, we sell about 23 LLPD of fresh milk within and four LLPD outside Gujarat", Mr Sodhi added.

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