Instant snack market gets a local flavour. Mother Dairy is set to roll out ready-to-eat snacks from its stable.

Mother Dairy has entered the market with frozen aloo tikki, as part of its product diversification strategy. The market of frozen potato snacks, at present, is dominated by Canada’s McCain Foods.

“We see a big potential in the heat-and-eat segment and plan to increase our presence in this category,” said Pradipta K. Sahoo, Head of Fruit and Vegetable business at Mother Dairy.

For the past few months, the company has been test-marketing its frozen aloo tikkis under the Safal brand through its 400-odd fruit and vegetable outlets in Delhi, where it has sold about 10 tonnes.

“The initial volumes are encouraging and we plan to scale up our presence pan-India and expand the product range going forward,” he said.

Mother Dairy is setting up a new unit to manufacture frozen aloo tikkis at its fruit and vegetable distribution and processing facility in Mongolpuri, Delhi.

“We plan to invest a few crores in the manufacturing facility,” Sahoo said.

Mother Dairy sees a synergy in the frozen food with its ice cream business, through which it also sells the Safal frozen peas and frozen vegetables.

“We want to leverage the strong distribution and retailer network that we already have for our ice cream business,” he said.

The company’s distribution network reaches to over 15,000 outlets.

Factors such as convenience, changing lifestyles and rising disposable incomes have been the key drivers for the frozen food segment, which has seen a rapid growth in recent years.

The proliferation of modern retail grocery stores and the change in perception of consumers with regards to frozen processed foods is aiding the category growth.

McCain Foods leads the fast emerging market in India for frozen French fries and potato specialties among others.

> vishwanath.kulkarni@thehindu.co.in

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