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Amul launches frozen pizza

Nandini Lakshman

There's a wicked glint in Amul pointman B M Vyas' eyes as he says, "I want to do to the pizza market what I've done to the ice cream market."

And what did the managing director of Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, the Rs 22.60 billion Anand-based co-operative, which makes the Amul brand of food and dairy products, do to the ice cream market?

Barely three years after Amul entered the deep freeze zone, Vyas says the brand is all set to outdo arch rival Hindustan Lever in ice creams.

It already produces 1.6 million litre of ice cream compared with HLL's 2.2 million litres. Add 5 million litres sold by Mother Dairy, the New Delhi-based co-operative's ice cream brand, and Amul is snapping at HLL's heels. Vyas claims that by the end of this financial year, Amul will be ahead of HLL.

It is this confidence which has seen Amul on a roll in the last couple of months. It wants to milk its 20,000 ice cream distributors for the recently launched pizzas and the soon-to-be launched parathas, cheese and paneer pakoras and Amul ice-cream mix in a tetrapak. The last is being pitched as a versatile product, which can also double up as a milk shake.

As for those who do not want their pizzas hot, Amul launched the frozen variant two days ago in Ahmedabad. "If I can provide 20,000 shops with refrigerators to stock my ice creams, why shouldn't I give them ovens too," asks Vyas.

These frozen brands would be marketed under a sub-brand, Snowcap. Apart from Amul dairy products, the other sub brands include Dhara oil and mineral water, Safal fruits and vegetables and the Utsav range of premium ice creams.

In fact, Amul has become so market savvy that it plans to have a fleet of cycles which will hawk its products. But unlike the HLL's Wall's carts which sell only ice cream, the Amul bikes will display its food platter.

Hoping to close this financial year with a Rs 26 billion turnover, Vyas says that new products account for 30 per cent of revenues, up from 15 per cent three years ago, and the percentage is growing.

For a co-operative which first made Mozarella cheese in 1995 to supply pizza chains like Domino's and Pizza Hut, it is all set to give them a run for their money.

And how does he plan to convert his native Gujaratis from forgoing their varied cuisine in favour of the western pizza? For the past two years, Amul has conducted 15,000 classes in 200 Indian cities teaching housewives the art of pizza making.

Clearly, Amul is hungry for success. And beating multinationals at their own game makes it even more exciting for Vyas.

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