R S Sodhi, new managing director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation that markets Amul milk and milk products, wants to convert Amul into a strong food brand by pushing categories such as ice cream, beverages, paneer, dahi and fruit-lassi. Sodhi, who took over as the MD earlier this month, wants the cooperative to increase its turnover more than three-fold to Rs 30,000 crore from the current Rs 8,000 crore, by 2020. It may be recalled that Sodhi, who was the general manager of GCMMF, assumed the temporary charge of MD some six months ago on the resignation of former Managing director BM Vyas. Later, the appointment of Sodhi as the new MD had been ratified by the GCMMF Board.
In an interview with The Economic Times, Sodhi said the company’s flagship products included milk, butter, infant milk powder, and dairy whitener. Cheese came later. Liquid milk contributes 40% to its revenues, while the other three brought 30% the revenues. All these products had grown 10-20% year-on-year. “We have carved out a niche for ourselves in these categories. Amul’s star products of the future would be fresh food including ice cream, beverages, paneer, milk (in tetra packs), dahi and fresh-fruit lassi. We may even launch ‘gajar ka halwai’ through which we can sell butter (as an ingredient), our prime product. We want to transform every Indian kitchen into an Amul kitchen – from the daily glass of milk or butter milk to butter and cheese for breakfast to paneer and curd in meals.
About the ambitious growth prospects, Sodhi said, “There was a lot of scope in the dairy industry considering we are handling only 3% of the total organised milk production of India. By 29020, we want to produce 200 lakh litres of milk everyday, up from the current 92 lakh litres. The idea is to seek a three-fold jump in turnover to Rs 30,000 crore.
Sodhi said Amul was the market leader across India. In places where Amul did not sell liquid milk, it made up by selling dairy whitener. Abul had 88% market share in butter, 63% share in infant milk and 45% in dairy whitener. It also enjoyed a 26% share in the Rs 25,000-crore packaged milk market.
As MD, what are his priorities for the growth of the company? First, the company wants to strengthen the logistics and distribution in the rural markets where purchasing power was going up rapidly. It was keen to penetrate such markets with aspirational products like cheeses, butter and ice cream and urban markets with daily consumption food items such as lassi, curd and paneer. Second, the company wants to make the dairy business profitable to the farmers who were the key shareholders. As much as 85% of the sales proceeds from milk retailing across Gujarat goes to them. Amul would strive to increase returns by introducing value added products. Third, he would like to see Amul emerge as a strong food brand for the homemaker.
This information is taken from- http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=29105§ionid=1
