India: ITC forays into dairy with ghee launch

ITC, the leading Indian FMCG firm, has announced that it will expand its offering by launching its first dairy product – ghee – by the end of Q3 this year.

The company has built a milk processing plant in Munger, in Bihar – where it has a network that covers more than 2,800 dairy farmers with an average procurement of over 10,000 litres per day – and is already investigating the possibility of setting up other milk facilities in the country.

"We will bring our first dairy product into the market with ghee by the end of the current quarter", said Sanjiv Puri, president of FMCG businesses at ITC. "Work on this plan is at various stages and when we are ready, we will launch products based on how the market evolves”.

Ghee, which is the Indian version of clarified butter, will represent the first dairy product to be launched by ITC. The company expects to follow it up with other products over the next few years, including packaged milk, butter and cheese.

Source: Economic Times