June 24, 2011

  

Fonterra to enter Indian market

 

 

Fonterra Co-operative Group, a New Zealand based group, is interested to go into the Indian market by launching a state-of-art dairy farm in Andhra Pradesh.

 

Talking to FE ahead of Prime Minister John Key's visit to India next week, Jan Henderson, High Commissioner of New Zealand, said, "The Fonterra Co-operative group has been to India several times and is keen on setting up joint venture here. We feel that a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries would be a vehicle to open up this kind of partnership.''
 
Last year, Fonterra Group, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Co-operative (Iffco) and Global Dairy Health had inked a memorandum of understanding in Auckland to jointly conduct a feasibility study into a pilot dairy farm in India as a first step towards the vision of establishing large-scale world-class dairy farms in India.
 
The pilot farm, in phase one, could have a herd size of around 3,000-5,000 cows, arriving from New Zealand. The farm will be spread across 160 acres of the 3,000 acres that Iffco has in its possession (where it wanted to set up a special economic zone).
 
''India is a big market and we are also the world's highest producers of milk and diary products. With the entry of foreign players, our diary farmers would be exposed to latest technologies," said RS Sodhi, managing director of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), also owner of the popular Amul brand.
 
The synergy of two large co-operatives and dairy experts will help position India as a quality milk producer.
 

"Even if the number of cattle being imported is insignificant compared against the 115 million milch bovine in India, any cow from outside the country has to be quarantined and a strict bio-safety measures need to be in place," senior National Diary Development Board officials said.

The New Zealand based company took a similar approach in China where it established a pilot farm for 3,000 cows in Tangshan in 2007.
 
Fonterra is a global leader in dairy nutrition, and is also a market leader with its own consumer dairy brands in Australia/New Zealand, Asia/Africa, Middle East and Latin America.
 

The farmer-owned New Zealand co-operative is the largest processor of milk in the world, producing more than two million tonnes of dairy ingredients, value added dairy ingredients, specialty ingredients and consumer products every year.

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