Nestle plans special milk formulation for India

Picking up the consumer switch to healthier drinks, Nestle India is expanding its liquid milk portfolio with specially formulated milk for people who may be lactose-intolerant or diabetic.

The Rs 2,800-crore food major plans to introduce these products in six months.

India is the first market where the Swiss foods and dairy giant will launch this product range, Mayank Trivedi, general manager, dairy division, Nestle India told Business Standard.

"Since such a product is not available in the Indian market, the potential of such value-added milk variants would be difficult to assess. However, considering the large number of people suffering from diabetics in the country, we expect they will do well," Trivedi said.

As milk seems to be the new fad for the health-conscious, we see considerable potential in the value-added category, Trivedi said.

Nestle executives pointed out that the consumption of processed milk is growing at an attractive 10 per cent in India, while milk production is growing at just five per cent.

Recently, beverages major PepsiCo said it is looking at entering the milk-based beverages segment in India.

The only brands in value-added milk beverages in India are packaged milk brands like Amul which sells flavoured milk with the sub-brand Kool. Aarey, in Maharashtra, sells flavoured milk under the Energee brand.

Other milk products like ice-cream and yoghurt are also making the health pitch. Amul has already launched the

Prolite brand of probiotic ice-creams.

Nestle, too, has launched Nesvita, a probiotic variant of yoghurt. This product, which is low on fat, would assist in better digestion thanks to the probiotic bacteria in the product, Trivedi explained.

Although priced 15 per cent higher than Fresh n Natural, the regular yoghurt, Nesvita is expected to do well in line with global trends.

"The probiotic market worldwide is estimated at $15 billion. Moreover, the yoghurt and refined yoghurt market is growing at about 15 per cent.

This provides us a good opportunity even in India," Trivedi said.

In two years, probiotic products would constitute between 30 and 40 per cent of Nestle's chilled dairy business in India.

Probiotics are dietary supplements containing potentially beneficial bacteria or yeast. The rationale for probiotics is that the body contains a miniature ecology of microbes collectively know as the gut flora. A number of bacterial types are thought to be thrown out of balance by a wide range of circumstances including the use of antibiotics or other drugs, excess of alcohol, stress, disease, or exposure to toxic substances.

Maintenance of a healthy gut flora is dependent on many factors, especially the quality of food intake. Including a significant proportion of prebiotic foods in the diet has been demonstrated to support a healthy gut flora and may be another means of achieving the desirable health benefits promised by probiotics.