February 15, 2007
Hunan's Taizinai aims to bring about China's "second milk revolution"
Hunan's Taizinai Group has high hopes it would revolutionise China's milk consumption habits with the completion of its Lactobacillus drink facility at Liyu Industrial Park in Hunan's Zhuzhou.
The plant, a US$73 million investment financed by top investment firms Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Actis, would be Asia's biggest lactobacillus fermentation base.
Investment firms look out for companies with growth potential and Taizinai fits the profile very well, General Manager for Goldman Sach Asia Pacific Hu Zuliu said. Whether it is in the lactobacillus market or in the milk market, the company's market share and branding have extraordinary growth potential, he added.
Until a few years ago, Taizinai had a 72.8 percent share of China's lactobacillus market. With the company's years of experience in the production and sales of lactobacillus products, generous returns are guaranteed, Hu said.
The newly completed Liyuan Industrial Park, spanning over 670 mu (1 mu= 0.067 hectare), was built at a cost of RMB 800 million. It is capable of annual milk production of up to 1 million tonnes. The new production base would complement Taizinai's four other production bases in Beijing's Miyun, Jiangsu's Kunshan, Sichuan's Chengdu and Hubei's Huanggang. The park marked the completion of the group's strategic placements of its production bases, thus enabling it to be the top lactobacillus production group in Asia.
Li Tuchun, director of Taizinai Group, said the plant marks a new beginning for the industry.
He noted that in Japan, lactobacillus drinks takes up to 80 percent of the dairy market. In Europe, the figure is at 40 percent. Yet, in China, it is less than 5 percent. Taizinai's mission is to change the status quo, he said. If the drink milk campaign started by Yili and Guangming was the first milk revolution in China, then Taizinai's move to replace hi-tech milk with traditional milk would be China's second milk revolution, he declared.
