Americans to get a taste of India

And baiting the two-mill
19 May 2004

The recent news that Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation had signed an agreement with Wal-Mart to stock its shelves with products under its Amul brand name is proof that the 'the taste of India' has finally arrived.

But this is not the first time that Amul will be stepping foot on US soil. Amul has been in the US since 1998 through Kanan Dairy, which markets Amul processed cheese, pure ghee, Shrikhand, Nutramul, Amul's Mithaee Gulab Jamuns to more than 1,000 ethnic Indian grocery stores in the US through a network of seven distributors.

And this may just be the right time to go full-fledged into the US market via discount stores like Wal-Mart. Dairy prices — milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese — are at record highs primarily due to lower dairy cattle and high gasoline prices in the milk trucking industry. Mozzarella cheese prices have been increasing in the past one year. And mozzarella cheese is an important part of Amul's product portfolio. Amul decided to go up the food chain and into the mini-pizza market in India only to proliferate the consumption of mozzarella cheese, thus giving Britannia a run for its money in the cheese market.

Now, since milk is an integral part of the American diet, consumption levels will be almost maintained. But, consumers may seek out low-priced stores like Wal-Mart not only for milk but other dairy products as well. This will work to the advantage of Amul.

While the potential is enormous, the key to Amul's success will be its ability to localise. For instance, when big MNCs came looking to capture a slice of the pie of the growing emerging markets, they decided to customise their offerings. Like McDonald's introduction of Aloo Tikki, in deference to the Indian palate or when Pepsi coined the Yeh Dil Maange More tag-line in India.

Amul will have to customise its products and look outside the ethnic box to suit the American and other ethnic palates. It simply cannot use its home-ground strategies in the US and expect to make a mark, even if Wal-Mart plans to push the brand only in stores and only in states like New York and New Jersey, where the Indian community is very strong.