“We are catering to more than 35,000 households across four cities”

In an e-mail interview with Restaurant India, Akshali Shah, Sr. VP Strategy, Sales and Marketing at Pride of Cows, revealed the number of households her brand has covered across India, how she plans to launch other value-added products under the same brand name such as single origin ghee and fruit yogurt, and what is the road ahead for the brand

Kritika Agrawal Correspondent, Restaurant India

The brand ‘Pride of Cows’ was launched first in Mumbai in 2011 and then in cities like Pune, Surat and Delhi. How has been the growth curve so far?

Our country has been facing the issue of adulteration in milk since long. This is an area of serious concern and the awareness about the need to maintain hygiene and purity in milk has been spread well by the Indian media, which has pointed out that 65-70% of milk is adulterated. There also have been measures taken by various government bodies and dairy companies in order to stop the poisoning of milk. One such initiative was taken by Parag Milk Foods Ltd. by launching Pride of Cows in 2011 with a unique ‘farm to home’ (F2H) concept.

The milk is available only through invitation and delivered to the consumer’s doorstep directly from Bhagyalaxmi Dairy Farm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Parag Milk Foods. A premium milk brand, Pride of Cows was launched in South Mumbai with merely 175 customers followed by Pune in 2012, Surat in 2015 and Delhi in 2019. Since its launch we have seen tremendous consumer acceptance for its purity, aroma and freshness. With only word-of-mouth and digital campaigns the company has been able to generate revenues at a CAGR of approximately 30% over FY 2013-18.

Could you tell us the number of households you have covered across India?

After piloting this ambitious project of delivering milk by invitation only in south Mumbai, the company has extended it to other parts of Mumbai, Pune, Surat and Delhi and we are now catering to more than 35,000 households across these four cities.

What are the expansion plans in the offing?

We plan to move to other metro cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc. and cities where we are likely to have airports in the next five years. With this aim to reach out to more metros across the country, we plan to increase the production at our farm.

How has been the volume growth during last two to three years? Looking forward, what is your target growth for this brand?

As mentioned before, Pride of Cows has grown at a CAGR of about 30% and it will continue to grow at this pace. We are also introducing value-added products under the brand Pride of Cows such as breakfast milk which will be filled with fruits, muesli and granola, single origin ghee, yogurt with fresh fruits, etc.

In Mumbai, how many households you can cater to and are you able to put your capacity to full use?

We don’t have numbers for each region. The production capacity of the Bhagyalakshmi Dairy farm is more than 25,000 litres per day.