Mother Dairy, the Indian foods and beverage company launched its offering in the fresh milk category today in Pune. The company announced three variants in the fresh milk category--full cream milk, tea special milk and cow milk which will be available in the retail market Sunday, 22 February onwards.
Milk will be supplied to Pune from its existing Vashi unit in Navi Mumbai and once volumes pick up and cross a 50,000 to 60, 000 liter mark it plans to have a unit in Pune. Alternatively, the company may tie up with some existing entity for packaging and other needs to supply to the Pune market. The 'tea special' milk variation is expected to give the company a first mover advantage in this particular segment which is priced at Rs 22 per liter which is the same as cow milk. Whereas the full cream milk with a 6.8 per cent fat content vis-à-vis 6.6 per cent in competitive brands will be sold at a rate of Rs 28 for a liter.
"The tea special variant exists in places like Saurashtra for bulk sale purposes but we are introducing this for the first time as a product for end-consumers. Our market study shows that there is a high tea drinking population. I think we are the third or the fourth largest foods company in India and by the year-end of 2008-2009 we should close our turn over at approximately Rs 3300 crore. Our daily production of milk is close to 2.6 million liters right now," said Paul Thachil, CEO, dairy and foods, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Private Ltd.
Mother Dairy sells its horticulture brands under the name Safal and vegetable oil related products under Dhara. It has around 800 owned outlets for milk in Delhi. The vegetable and fruit outlets too exist in Delhi, which are 400 in number while Jaipur has 25, and Bangalore has 20 of them. After Pune, the company is eyeing Nagpur for further expansion before the end of this calendar year. Their current market share in fresh milk is close to 10 per cent.
Mother Dairy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board.