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Mahindra & Mahindra enters dairy market, launches milk in Indore

Source : Economictimes

Auto-to-aerospace conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra has launched milk in Indore in Madhya Pradesh, expanding the offerings from its agricultural divison that already sells pulses, fruits and oilseeds.

The company said on Tuesday that it will sell milk under its Saboro brand in Indore for some months, before launching the product in capital Bhopal and other big cities of the state. It will eventually enter other dairy products, a top executive said.

“Our Saboro milk, which comes in four variants, will be sold in the range of Rs 35-50 a litre,” said Ashok Sharma, CEO-Agri and Africa and South Asia Operations at M&M. “We will provide assurance of cream and nutrition, which came out as the two biggest requirements during our research with customers in Indore. Also, all our milk variants are specially fortified with Vitamin A and D.”

M&M’s agricultural division has seen sales of pulses and oilseeds grow 50% since launch in 2015. The division, which has also become one of India’s biggest grape exporters, expects to clock a turnover of Rs 900 crore in the current fiscal.

The company said it has put in place a technologically advanced milk collection supply chain around 70 villages near Indore where it is working directly with farmers. The milk will be processesd in Indore. “To begin with, we will process 10,000 litre of milk a day and take it to 50,000 litre a day,” said Sharma

India’s milk production is estimated to increase to 146.31 million tonne in 2015-16. The per capita availability of milk has increased to 302 gm, according to the agriculture ministry.

Unbranded milk and dairy segment accounts for 75-80% of India’s Rs 4-lakh crore dairy market, according to industry estimates.