Metro Dairy makes dent in Kolkata

By Pratim Ranjan Bose

KOLKATA, AUG. 15. Metro Dairy, a local player, entered the Kolkata ice cream market rather quietly in September 1999, because the advertisement budget was too small. Till date the company could not roll out push carts and its sales were almost solely dependent on retailers.

Yet, if market sources were to be believed, in less than two years, it had claimed an equal share (37 per cent in value terms) of the market to Kwality Walls of Hindustan Lever. Rollick the erstwhile local giant, stood a poor second with 13 per cent.

Though HLL considers Metro Dairy its nearest rival, it however denies to have lost its undisputed supremacy. ``We are the undisputed leaders in Kolkata with 55 per cent share (in value)", says a company spokesman. The company clearly attributes Metro Dairy's rise to the decline in market share of Rollick.

The controversy, if any, on the leadership position, there is little doubt that the company had brought in some definitive changes in the rule of the game in an otherwise small Kolkata market ever since the entry of HLL.

Metro Dairy, a Rs. 50 crore joint venture between West Bengal Milk Federation, National Dairy Development Board and the private sector Keventor Agro, was set up in 1996 with World Bank and with the main objective of spreading dairy farming in Bengal. Mr. Sumit Deb, managing director, claims that they did succeed in raising the domestic procurement from the affiliated milk unions.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Neither a dip nor a recession - Deutsche Bank
           chief economist
Next     : Dalmia Cements' DRM exercise