In the past one year, Mother Dairy has entered new markets such as Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. — S. Subramanium
Now, you and your friends can enjoy your favourite Mother Dairy mango duet ice cream sitting comfortably in a parlour as the dairy major is gearing up to set up ice cream parlours under its brand. Its nearest competitor HUL already has its Kwality Wall Swirl’s parlours.Others such as Baskin Robbins and even a regional brand such as Naturals have their parlours.
“We are working on a model which would be different from the existing ice cream parlours in the country. These parlours would be small and serve as takeaways but there would be innovation in terms of format and recipes with even some amount of automation,” said Subhashis Basu, Business Head-Dairy Products, Mother Dairy.
The Rs 1,500-crore ice cream market is currently growing at 15 per cent. While Amul is the market leader with a 34 per cent volume share, Mother Dairy claims to be on par with HUL with a 15 per cent share.
Mother Dairy has decided to pilot its parlours at a time when it is also extending its franchise into frozen desserts.
At the same time, the company is also setting up three lakh kiosks as an alternative distribution arrangement. “We have been doing a pilot in Delhi and through kiosks we would have ‘brand on premise’ model. We are reaching out to customers instead of them coming to us,” claims Basu.
Kiosks have already been put up in malls, schools and housing societies in Delhi.
In fact, kiosks are being looked upon as an additional distribution model especially in new markets such as Mumbai. “We are doing a pilot in colleges and offices in Mumbai as vending carts are not allowed in the city,” added Basu.
Considering Mother Dairy has been late in entering new markets outside Delhi, kiosks and parlours would add to deeper penetration. “We may have started out late but in the past one year we have entered new markets such as Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We should be in Chennai too in the next one year. In many of these new markets, we may tweak products to suit regional tastes,” he said.
Published on August 20, 2012
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