With consumers increasingly turning to online shopping, Mother Dairy is looking at getting onto the D2C bandwagon. The company, which is celebrating 50 years since inception, closed FY24 with a turnover of ₹15,000 crore. With an eye on the next phase of growth, the packaged food major is ramping up manufacturing capacities, launching new products, expanding sourcing and distribution network to strengthen its pan-India play. It is eyeing a turnover of ₹17,000 crore in FY25.
Talking about its D2C plans, Manish Bandlish, MD, Mother Dairy, told businessline, “As part of a pilot, we have equipped 50 booths in Delhi with a home-delivery app for consumers to be able to order directly from them. We are testing this model and want to ensure that it makes commercial sense for our business partners. We are seeing good traction during this testing phase. Once the model stabilises, we will gradually expand this app across the Delhi-NCR, leveraging on our large network of booths. Once this expansion happens, we will be a formidable force in Delhi-NCR in terms of delivery.”
“I think this is the future, as consumers are increasingly adopting online shopping and delivery is becoming a significant piece for all players. Companies need to be agile in adopting new strategies,” he added.
Plans for segments
Bandlish said that the company has strong plans for all the three businesses, including milk and milk-related products, fruits and vegetables, and value-added food products under Safal, besides edible oil portfolio under Dhara. “Aided by a strong summer season and strong momentum expected in the second half due to the festival season, we are expecting to see good growth. We aim to end this fiscal with a turnover of about ₹17,000 crore,” he added.
The company is in an expansion mode and investing ₹800-850 crore to ramp up existing capacities as well as set up new plants. This includes a mega plant in Maharashtra (Nagpur) for milk and value-added dairy products and a new fruit and vegetable processing plant in Karnataka for the Safal business.
“We have identified markets across the country, where we want to deepen our presence including North, West and South. We are ramping up our distribution as well as sourcing capabilities in these regions. We are also expanding our value-added products range in existing and new categories,” he added. The company is also keen to expand its exports.
Under Safal, for instance, the company is keen to expand its presence in the frozen food segment and pulp-based products. “We are looking at launching a new range of premium ice-creams in the next season. There is a growing set of consumers who are willing to pay higher for product innovation and premium products, and we want to tap into these consumption trends as well. We are also significantly expanding value-added dairy portfolio in categories such as paneer and greek yoghurt range,” Bandlish explained.
The wholly-owned subsidiary of NDDB has seen significant growth on the e-commerce and quick-commerce channels. “We have been recording 50-60 per cent growth on these channels,” he said.
He added that the company has been witnessing strong growth for its edible oils portfolio. “Dhara has been consistently growing for us in the past decade. It is growing at double the industry growth rate. We are also entering new geographies in the edible oils segment,” Bandlish said.