Dairy Market in India 2013

The new report, 'Dairy Market in India', states that the Indian dairy market is experiencing rising demand due to various driving factors which in turn is providing immense opportunities to manufacturers to grow and operate in the market lucratively.

The Indian food and beverage sector is huge and highly competitive in nature. The industry comprises of several sub-sectors such as fruits & vegetables, meat & poultry, dairy, marine products, grains and consumer foods. Dairy Industry plays an important role in the socio-economic development of the nation by generating huge rural employment as well as providing cheap and nutritional food to the vast population. Though the dairy market in India is dominated by the unorganized sector, the organized sector has shown remarkable growth last few years.

The report provides a snapshot of the Indian dairy industry which has witnessed several changes post 'Operation Flood' era. Dairy sector witnessed spectacular growth during 1971 and 1996 primarily due to integrated cooperative dairy development programmes conducted by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Moreover, after 1991, due to liberalization and delicensing, private sector also started entering the market, which further accelerated its growth. Major players of the Indian dairy market include Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Amul), Mother Dairy, Nestle India, Britannia Industries, Hatsun Agro and Heritage Foods amongst others. In addition to this, a number of regional players have also entered the market in the last few years thereby making the market more competitive in nature.

There are certain factors that predominantly work towards enabling the sector to grow in the likes of higher disposable income that aids in greater spending power by consumers, rapid urbanization which leads to busy lifestyle and subsequent inclination of consumers toward packaged food products and aggressive marketing campaigns by all the players to break the product clutter and attract consumers toward their brand. In addition to these, the other factors which are contributing towards rapid growth of the industry include favorable demographics, fast expanding retail network, growth of user industries and rise in bovine population.

For dairy products, quality standards laid by FSSAI have to be followed by the industry players. Various government policies that have been formulated for the food processing sector such as FDI, tax benefits and export promotions are applicable for the dairy category as well.

To sum up, the Indian dairy industry is a stable market at present and has strong growth potential in the future years.