Mother Dairy to enter health foods segment

Mother Dairy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, is planning to enter the health foods segment. The company has neither finalised the time nor the probable areas that it will look into within the health foods segment.

According to S Nagarajan, Managing Director, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Pvt Ltd, the company has already spent around Rs 15 crore to set up a research and development unit that includes new pilot lines and testing equipments.

“Entering into health food is a state objective for us. But, when and in what categories is something we cannot state just now. We are still testing things out,” he said on the sidelines of the launch of the company’s ‘Dailycious’ brand of packet milk in the state.

Mother Dairy cannot sell milk under the eponymous brand in the state as the rights for the brand name are still held by the West Bengal government.

According to Nagarajan, there are enough health food categories that the company can explore, targeting primarily women between the age groups of 11 and 59 and those suffering from calcium, iron and vitamin D deficiency. This apart, deficiencies caused by changing lifestyle issues too can be looked into through these offerings.

Incidentally, the company is already experimenting with different value adds in the milk category. For example, it is in the process of rolling out a ‘low calorie’ doi (yogurt) variant over the next two months.

This apart, it had previously rolled out low calorie packaged milk under the ‘Mother Dairy’ brand.

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