Mahanand Dairy in move to tap AP milk demand

A number of dairy players are cashing in on the demand supply gap existing in the fresh milk market in Andhra Pradesh. After Mother Dairy another fresh milk brand set to hit cities in Andhra Pradesh including Hyderabad is Mahanand brand from Mahanand Dairy, the milk-surplus apex milk co-operative body from Maharashtra state.

Mahanand fresh milk brand launched in Hyderabad recently is priced at Rs 15 per litre for the toned variety and Rs 19 for the standard variety per litre.

Speaking at the launch M A Rajeev, managing director, Mahanand Dairy, said "Our objective as a co-operative is to deliver best quality milk to our consumers which is fresh and healthy. We have been very successful in the State of Maharashtra where we have an excellent consumer patronage selling over 900,000 litres of milk everyday and we aim to emulate the same consumer acceptance in the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

Rajeev said that there was a 30 per cent supply-demand gap in Hyderabad city and the company expects to touch a daily sales of more than one lakh litres per day.

Mahanand Dairy will initially transport milk to AP from its dairies in the Marathwada region.

According to Rajeev the transportation costs are not too significant given the fact that, "It takes just six hours to bring milk to Hyderabad from Marathwada whereas local players in the state bring milk from Chittoor and Visakhapatnam to the city which takes even more time."

According to Rajeev sometime in the near future Mahanand Dairy will set up a unit in the state as well.

The demand and supply gap in the state is huge as the total milk sold by the organised sector in the state is about 12 lakh litres per day of which the Vijaya milk brand, marketed by the State Dairy Development Corporation, contributes just 2.75 lakh litres a day.

The original volume handled by the State Milk Co-operative Federation was around 4.20 lakh with the combined sales of the Mother Dairy (originally bulk vending arm of Vijaya Dairy).

The two big local private fresh milk brands, Heritage and Jersy, sell around 2 lakh litres each day.

Amul and Nestle milk brands available in the state in tetrapaks at present are also expected to launched in fresh milk pouches soon in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the state according to market sources.

According to officials, Mahanand sells between 7 lakh and 7.5 lakh litres of milk a day only in Mumbai with the rest of the players just touching the half-way mark. The company's counterparts in Andhra Pradesh account for just 30 per cent of the total market share in the organised sector. While almost 50 per cent of the total market here is controlled by private players, the remaining 20 per cent demand is being met by the local milk vendors.

Mahanand dairy milk will have 5.5 per cent fat and 9 per cent SNF content (the standard milk variant comes with 4.5 fat and 8.5 SNF content).