We aim to bridge the quality and standards divide in the dairy industry: Anant Choudhary
We aim to bridge the quality and standards divide in the dairy industry: Anant Choudhary

India is one of the largest milk producing country. The industry is of $4bn-5bn in India and processed milk industry is of $80,000- $90,000. Seeing such opportunity, UP born dairy start-up Freshmen’s Valley is aiming to transform the market with its premium offering of cream milk, standardized milk, toned milk, double toned milk and skimmed milk. These products are processed in keeping with international quality standards.

What inspired you to launch a dairy product start-up?

I belong to the farming family. I have observed that the dairy products market is filled with the adulterated products. There is a dearth of hygiene and good quality products and there are huge concerns with supply chain and packaging of the milk products. This inspired me to venture into dairy products space to serve premium quality products to the consumers. First we have launched in Uttrakhand and Western UP.

What is your daily delivery range?

Every day we deliver around 20,000 litres of processed milk to households with help of 60 distributors and planning to reach to 50,000-60,000 litres a day capacity by October 2016. We are aiming to provide better livelihood mechanisms to the locals.

With the help of cutting age technology how are you easing these concerns?

Our products packaging are in line with international parameters. Our stringent quality guidelines are an amalgamation of cutting edge technology and conventional insights. Our products are being introduced to the market to bridge the quality and standards divide that persists in the dairy industry today.

To protect the milk from malpractices we are securing the transport from farmer to plant, set up CCTV cameras at plant and reception point to catch the adulteration. Our milk pouches are 9 MM poly pack to secure milk from bacteria condemnation, keep product odour free, prevent contamination and preserve the nutrition. We have extensively worked on standard of packaging.

From where do you source the milk?

We procure finest milk directly from farmers from Terai region - the richest milk belt of India. We have used ultra-modern technology used to ensure superior product quality. We follow seven parameters for quality checks to ensure 100 percent purity. We have cut down the intermediary and introducing aggregators for the benefits of farmers. Our production facility supported by strong logistics and distribution network.

What is the range of premium milk products that you offer?

We have introduced pure and premium dairy milk, in keeping with international quality standards. We are offering pouch milk in 5 variants like full cream milk, standardized milk, toned milk, double toned milk and skimmed milk. We also offer paneer, buttermilk, flavoured milk and yogurt. The price range of our milk starts from Rs 44 litre. Our aim is to provide the most hygienic and purest dairy products to our end consumers.

What are your plans of product expansion?

Further, we will also offer an assortment of other dairy products likefresh curd, butter milk, masala butter milk, greek yogurt and malai paneer.

What are your strategies of penetrating products in this clustered market of dairy products?

We have our own value of products and are not competing with the established players. We are not scaling up aggressively our objective is to deliver the value in the market while reaching up the maximum production capacity of 3 lakh litre per day.

We will also soon explore the option of supplying our products to the leading food e-commerce portals.

What is your total investment for the venture?

I have invested around Rs 50cr in setting up two processing plants at Sambhal region in UP. The investment was funded by debt-equity offered by bank. With the investment we not only deliver to the consumers but also support the farmers by directly procuring from them.

What are your future expansion plans?

We are planning to launch our full range of dairy and value added products in Delhi-NCR by 2017. And in the next few years we aspire to increase our footprint across Northern India and reach out to more than 5,00,000 farmers while developing the dairy farming industry in Uttar Pradesh and Western UP.

What is your future projection of turnover?

By 2018 we are planning to earn Rs 400 cr turnover.  

 
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