The Milky Way to Growth
Source: The Business Standard, New Delhi and Kolkata, India,
December 17, 2002
Desi milk-based products lead the way to a new dairy revolution, says
Surinder Sud
The white revolution has already made India the world leader in milk
production. Its second phase is poised to transform the country into
a global giant in the output of dairy products. This transformation
will come about through the industrial production of desi milk-based
products, including the vast range of mithais for which huge unmet
demand exists.
What will trigger this revolution is the application of modern mass
manufacturing technology to indigenous products that have hitherto
been prepared and marketed largely by the halwais in the unorganised
sector. Industrial-scale production, scientific
packaging and modern marketing can unleash a tremendous amount of
value addition - up to 200 per cent - in these products to make commercial
sense for the organised sector to step in.
The market for mass-produced and packaged indigenous milk-based products
is expanding fast at both the domestic and global level. Even today,
the domestic market of ethnic milk products is estimated at Rs 5,000
crore.
Many of the mass consumed products have
already been commercialised by the organised sector.
These include flavoured milks, dahi, paneer, buttermilk, lassi, gulabjamun,
shrikhand and kheer. With rising income levels and the growing size
of the middle and upper-middle class in urban and semi-urban centres,
this market is bound to grow rapidly.
Regarding the overseas demand for Indian milk products and sweets,
surveys indicate that North America alone may be able to absorb these
items worth $ 500 million. The mainstay of this market will, of course,
be the Indian diaspora of around 20 million, over half of them living
in the West. Besides, there is potential also to popularise these
products among local consumers abroad.
The optimism on this front emanates from the interest entrepreneurs
in Europe, North America and Australia are showing in manufacturing
the Indian products. One such unit has already been set up in Canada
by IDP Foods Inc in the cooperative sector. This unit is essentially
a replica of India's Vadodara-based Sugam Dairy which pioneered the
industrial production of indigenous dairy products with assistance
from the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Several other Indian companies have ventured
into the commercial production and marketing of mithais under brands
like Haldiram, Bikanervala, K C Das, Ganguram, Chitales, Brijwasi,
Bikaji, Chandu, Ghasitaram, Ghantewala
and the like. The fact that most of these products have been received
well will encourage more investment in this sector.
The diversity in Indian dairy products
is relatively greater, offering the consumers as well as the manufacturing
industry a wider choice. As pointed
out by noted dairyman V Kurien, the range of Western milk products
consists largely of variants of cheese, yogurt, ice-cream, sweetened
condensed milk, butter and butter oil. India has purely desi parallels
to each of these in the form of paneer, dahi, kulfi, rabri, makhan
and ghee. What lends a distinct market edge to India is the variety
of milk-based mithais, the range of which is difficult to fathom.
Indeed, what has been impeding the progress
in this field so far was the lack of technical and commercial information
for the prospective entrepreneurs. They
did not know where and what kind of processing technology was available
for each of these products. The information about the suppliers of
the processing equipment and other basic details was also wanting.
This gap has now been bridged with the
release of a comprehensive compendium of all such information and
know-how.
Titled "Technology of Indian Milk Products", this practical
guide for prospective entrepreneurs has been brought out by the Dairy
India Publications, the publishers of the popular "Dairy India
Yearbooks". This publication contains market surveys and statistics,
processing principles, technology for industrial production and packaging,
nutrition and health and other vital aspects of this field. It can
guide the investors in production planning and implementation, giving
them process flow-charts and engineering layout designs.
Many of the operations used in the manufacture
of Western food products can be adapted for the industrial manufacture
of desi products, this handbook reveals.
For instance, meatball-portioning machines and doughnut fryers can
be used for making gulabjamun; Japanese pastry-making machines can
be deployed to make burfi and other similar products; and khoa can
be prepared by using roller driers and scraped-surface heat exchangers
used in the manufacture of many Western products.
Though the public sector dairy institutes are already working on the
technology of the native milk products, a new private sector research
and development initiative has been mooted to cater exclusively to
this emerging industry. This centre can patent the processes, equipment
and product formulations and charge royalties on their use by the
industry to be financially self-sustaining.
Order the handbook. Have queries?
Contact us.
E-mail:
mail@indianmilkproducts.com
|
| Ethnic
Food Wave |
| Traditional dairy products
are becoming increasingly important with the globalization of
the ethnic food wave and the presence of some 20 million people
of Indian origin around the world. |
|
