Jayen Mehta, MD, Amul India, says “Amul is a very strong distribution organisation and our penetration is deeply increasing into the rural areas. So maybe about a few years back, we were not into these 10k, 5k towns. We are now very, very deeply entrenched into all the towns with a population of 5,000 and 10,000, The product mix, having value for money pricing in small packs is actually driving demand.”
Mehta further says: “Going by the double digit growth that we have, revenue will definitely be Rs 80,000 crore for the year ending March. GCF turnover last year was about Rs 55,000 crore; it will cross Rs 60,000 crore. We are managing double digit growth and will continue to build on this in the coming years.”
It is 50 years of Amul. Prime Minister Modi said he wants Amul to go global and wants it to be a big hub and said it is synonymous with trust, development and public participation. Everyone relates to Amul, but in terms of the company strategy, growth, becoming a power hub and global hub, how do you see that?
Jayen Mehta: Yes, the golden jubilee celebration for 50 years of GCMMF was attended by Honourable Prime Minister and the vision he gave for Amul to be the best and the strongest dairy brand in the world is inspirational for all of us and the 36 lakh farmers that own Amul. Having said that, this is an organisation which is deeply rooted into the rural society, 18,600 villages, 36 lakh farmer members. It is the world’s largest farmer-owned cooperative. So obviously, the expectations are also high.
Milk is of course the biggest business in FMCG, food, agriculture, all put together. And the turnover that we expect to have this year for the Amul brand will be almost 80%. We have been growing at double digit and we want to continue on that momentum. As you are aware, last year’s entire volume growth was because there was no increase in the price of milk per se. So on the whole, the trajectory of the organisation, all the constituents with 100 dairy plants, 18 district unions is all pretty much on the rise. The demand for all the products has been pretty good, encouraging in high double digits which is also very, very motivating
What is your outlook on how the cheese products are doing and do you think that the performance here is expected to improve?
Jayen Mehta: Yes, of course. Cheese is one of our very strong products in our portfolio. But going by the estimation of demand and the growth we are finding across categories, we are increasing the capacity by almost 55% in this fiscal. We have the largest manufacturers and brand of cheese in the country. Our market share is more than 70 in the range of 70-75%, slightly less than butter, which is about 85%.
So you can assume and estimate that the number 2, 3, 4 brands are all in single digit market share and almost 1/10th or 1/20th of the volume that we do. So that way, we are very optimistic about this category. We are planning to expand more than 55% in volume capacities. The huge demand, both in the consumer, Horeca and the institutional segment, is going to go up and we will surely gain very good volumes and market share in this category as well.
Source:-The economictimes
