Dairy Fun eyes Delhi

If you happen to be passing through east or north Delhi, you may notice that a new ice-cream brand has quietly crept into the city.

Push-carts of Dairy Fun, an ice cream promoted by the Agra based Coca Cola bottler Amrit Bottlers Pvt Ltd, are fighting for space with those of brands like Kwality Walls, Mother Dairy, Amul, Vadilal and Cream bell.

Model Nauheed Cyrusi (of Cadbury's and Gillette fame) with her toothy grin, features in the Dairy Fun print ads and signages.

"Despite tough competition, Delhi is a lucrative market. If we can grab even a small percentage of the Rs 50 crore ice-cream market, it's worth the try," says Rajesh Ladhani, the young managing director of R P Milkmade Products Ltd, the Amrit Bottlers' group company which owns the brand.

Amrit Bottlers is a Rs 200 crore, 20-year old company with plants in Agra, Lucknow, Faizabad and Bareilly.

To be sure, Dairy Fun was set up with an investment of Rs 3.5 crore in 1999 and initially catered to the markets in UP and Uttaranchal.

The brand is now looking at Rajasthan and Delhi in a big way. "We have about 30 per cent of the market in UP. But we're targeting the Delhi market in pockets "" we've taken up only north and east Delhi to begin with," says Ladhani who's father Lacchman Das Ladhani looks after the bottling plant for Coke in Faizabad.

The company's ice-cream plant in Agra is apparently stretched to its capacity, churning out a turnover of over Rs 9 crore for the company.

But Ladhani is hopeful of reaching the Rs 11 crore-mark by the end of this fiscal. The Agra plant will soon be supported by another manufacturing unit in Hardwar that is expected to come up by 2007.

"Once the second plant becomes operational, we hope to double Dairy Fun turnover to Rs 20 crore and capture at least 10 per cent share of the market in Delhi by 2007," claims Ladhani.

He adds that quality and affordability are Dairy Fun's USP. The Agra plants its fully automated. Besides it has introduced innovations such as frozen desserts (ice-cream cakes in chocolate, vanilla and other flavours).

It has mithai flavours like Rose Mithai and Ice Sandesh. "We were the first ones to start matka kulfis (pista, badam and kesar). I want the Indian taste to take over the foreign brands," says Ladhani.

Besides churning out mouth-watering ice-creams, Ladhani is also dabbling in real estate. "We're soon coming up with a multiplex called Riverside in Lucknow," he says. "But the focus of our attention will certainly be ice-cream," he quickly adds.