The Hindu Business Line : Mother Dairy bid to go national this fiscal

From being present primarily in the North and East of the country besides Mumbai, the company is now gearing up to go national. This expansion plan will see its brand of milk-based products such as curd, ice-cream, lassi, butter and ghee being sold across the country by the end of this year.

However, the company has decided to keep its liquid milk operations confined to three cities for now — Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. And in line with these expansion plans, the NDDB has set for itself a 33 per cent growth target for its FMCG business.The Mother Dairy India CEO, Mr Paul Thachil, told Business Line, "Mother Dairy's milk-based products will be available nationally by this year-end, except liquid milk which we will continue to sell only in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. The Dhara and Safal brands are already national. Our target is to make the FMCG entity worth Rs 2,000 crore in 2005-06."

The growth is expected to come from expanding operations, launching new products. Last year, Mother Dairy entered the ultra heat-treated milk, ghee and paneer markets besides extending fruit and vegetable brand Safal to more frozen vegetables and fruit juices. This year, it is working on yoghurt-based products about which Mr Thachil declined to provide details. He did say, however, that the advertising and marketing budget has been increased by up to 20 per cent this fiscal to Rs 20 crore.

He said Mother Dairy sourced 70 crore litres of milk from cooperatives last fiscal and the figure is likely to be much higher this year. Also, the company is investing "significantly" in putting up its second fruit pulp processing plant; it has already begun export of skimmed milk and whole milk dairy powder last year.

NDDB began its corporatisation initiative in 2001, as a result of which it has been divided into manufacturing arms such as Mother Dairy Food Processing Ltd and Dhara Vegetable Oil and Food Company, besides the marketing arm Mother Dairy India.

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