May 13, 2025

India not ready to accept all New Zealand dairy products

New Zealand (NZ) should not expect India to be a market for all its dairy products.

This is what India's public policy and business expert Ashok Malik said during the India-New Zealand "Boardroom to Border" event in Auckland, adding that India provides enormous opportunities for NZ. He cautioned however, that the dairy sector's expectations shouldn't be too high.

"Can it be a market for all NZ dairy products- no," said Malik.

"There may be opportunities for certain types of cheese but not mass-market cheese," he told over 200 attendees.

Malik said with a population of 1.4 billion, India shouldn't be seen just as a market for products but for partnerships.

He pointed out that India, the world's largest producer of milk, have cows used to producing milk in a hot climate but the yields are low. In NZ, cows produce more milk in "more comfortable conditions".

"So, one country with scale and one with productivity and technology can work together and find common markets all over the world."

India is working on a trede deal with NZ and it also recently announced a free trade deal with the United Kingdom.

With NZ, dairy exports to India remain a tricky issue. A possible solution could be exporting specialised ingredients and products to Indian manufacturers and food service sector, rather than exporting NZ dairy products like milk and cheese.

Speaking at the event, Fonterra director for global external affairs Simon Tucker noted that the Indian dairy market was valued at US$200 billion and forecast to grow to US$600 billion by 2022 – a compound growth of around 13% per year.

On the supply side, India is expected to become the second-largest dairy deficit market after China by 2025.

"Statistics are one thing and reality is another; let's see how things play out in India," says Tucker.

He says the Indian market will provide "niche opportunities" for Fonterra.

"We are never going to fulfil India's dairy, but we can look at how to deepen our existing partnerships and look into things like supplying specialised proteins into nutritional and medical applications."

-      Dairy News