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Harish Damodaran
Ratna Bhushan

NEW DELHI, Dec. 6

AFTER `regular' liquid milk, ice-cream, dahi (yoghurt) and flavoured milk, Mother Dairy Foods Processing Ltd (MDFPL) is now all set to enter the table butter segment. The Rs 950-crore wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is expected to soon launch its own `Mother Dairy' brand of butter here.

The Managing Director of Delhi-based MDFPL, Mr N.A. Shaikh, confirmed the move, though he declined to give any specific date for the launch or pricing of the product. "We are still working out details regarding packaging and distribution," he told Business Line. It is learnt that MDFPL will be sourcing its butter from the Jaipur district milk union, affiliated to the Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation (RCDF).

The 45,000-tonne per annum table butter market, valued at around Rs 500 crore, is currently dominated by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF or Amul), which accounts for roughly 35,000 tonnes. The other players include Britannia (3,500 tonnes), Andhra Pradesh Dairy Cooperative Federation or Vijaya (2,000 tonnes), Nestle (1,000 tonnes), besides a handful of local co-operatives and small private dairies.

MDFPL's foray into the butter segment means that there is going to be yet another large co-operative brand to take on the hitherto unchallenged market leader — the Rs 2,500-crore Amul. In fact, competition between the two has been hotting up, with Amul launching its ice-cream in Delhi — where Mother Dairy has an established presence — about seven months back.

Now, it is seemingly MDFPL's turn to hit back through its butter.

MDFPL is basically a company set up by NDDB to market the surplus milk procured from neighbouring co-operative dairy federations in the Delhi market. During 2001-02, MDFPL procured an average 14.85 lakh kg per day (LKPD) of milk. The bulk of its procurement is from Rajasthan (4.5-5 LKPD) and Uttar Pradesh (3.5-4 LKPD), apart from the federations in Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Interestingly, even Amul contributes about 80,000 litres per day of milk to MDFPL.

Out of MDFPL's Rs 950-crore turnover, around Rs 700 crore comes from sale of liquid milk. Last year, the company marketed about 13.4 lakh litres per day (LKPD), which included 7.2 LKPD of `toned' milk (containing three per cent fat and 8.5 per cent solids-not-fat or SNF) sold through bulk vending machines and 6.2 LLPD of polypack milk. The milk sold in polypacks include toned as well as `full-cream' (six per cent fat and nine per cent SNF), `double-toned' (1.5 per cent fat and nine per cent SNF) and `skimmed' (0.5 per cent fat and 8.7 per cent SNF) milk.

"We have an extensive milk distribution network in the Capital, consisting of 650 bulk vending machines (each of 1,600 litres capacity) in our own outlets, 400 insulated containers (600 litres) installed in private shops and 300 cycle-rickshaw driven containers-on-wheels of 200 litres capacity each," Mr Shaikh said.

MDFPL has a 35 per cent share in Delhi's estimated liquid milk market of 40 LLPD, half of which is supplied by small milk vendors. "We account for about 70 per cent of the organised segment players, which also include the Government-owned Delhi Milk Scheme (2.25 LLPD) and private brands such as Paras (2.5 LLPD), Gopaljee (one LLPD), Param (70,000 LPD) and Britannia (50,000 LPD)," Mr Shaikh added.

MDFPL's other dairy products comprise ice-cream (40,000 litres per day), yoghurt (11-12,000 kg per day) and flavoured milk (6-7,000 litres per day), which together contribute over Rs 100 crore. The company also markets fruits, vegetables and other food products under the `Safal' brand, the sales of which grossed nearly Rs 125 crore last year. In addition, the company owns an export-oriented unit near Mumbai, which earned around Rs 30 crore from export of tomato puree, mango pulp and other tropical fruit concentrates.

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