Their ice cream slabs in flavours like vanilla and butterscotch make house parties super fun. And there are more yummy treats in the offing from Mother Dairy. t2 caught up with Subhashis Basu, business head, dairy products, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable, to talk about Mother Dairy Dailycious, Mishti Doi and more... 

What do you prefer: doodh cha or laal cha?

(Smiles) Tea in north India is actually milk and then masala is added. For coffee, I can’t do without milk. I do drink laal cha but I prefer milk tea. 

Any reason why you chose Radhika Apte to promote Dailycious dairy whitener?

We have not done celebrity campaigns earlier. We tested it with Dailycious. We were looking for a face which appeals across India and also has a very good connect with Bengalis. Radhika is popular among Bengalis because she has done films (Antaheen) here. At the same time, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, I can run the same advertisement because she was in the Rajinikanth film (Kabali). We also wanted somebody who’s not overexposed. She fitted the bill. 

Why are you focusing on Bengal for Dailycious?

Dairy whitener works in milk-deficient markets. It also has a long shelf life. And not just Bengal, it works very well in, say, Noida and Bangalore. There is a huge population of students and bachelors who are staying as paying guests or in guest houses. For them, a single sachet of daily whitener is a boon. Our focus is also on tetrapack lassi, milkshakes and cream.

Mishti Doi is one of your most successful products. Do you have any figures?

We are doing 8-9 tonnes a day for Dahi and Mishti Doi, and we are trying to build up capacity. 

Mishti Doi was one of our very successful products in Delhi. And in 2011-12 we also launched it in Mumbai and found success. When we planned to launch Mishti Doi in Calcutta, people said I was mad. Who will buy it here because every 50 metres you find mishti doi. And people are used to having it in a matir bhar. For one year, I flew in Mishti Doi and Dahi from Delhi — we tied up with Jet Airways — to Calcutta. We used it to fly it into the Salt Lake markets, which was our test ground. This was 2012-13. Next question was where do we produce it. We got in touch with Thacker (Dairy Products Private Limited, whose products include milk, ice cream, ghee and so on). For the first time we took the call of making doi and mishti doi outside our factory. We developed a separate unit within the factory of Thacker and it worked really well.
Distribution of these products is also dicey as shelf life is short. Fresh dairy products have seven to 12-day shelf life and there is the question of end-to-end temperature. The issue in Calcutta is most retailers switch off their refrigerators at night. The habit of stocking fresh dairy product is not there here. They keep only cold drinks, which is only an end-point cold chain. 

Which is the fastest moving Mother Dairy ice cream flavour?

This year, two-three things have really clicked. Like Nolen Gur has a huge demand among Bengalis in Delhi. We had first launched it in Calcutta. Ekdam Aam is doing the best nationally. We have used mango pulp in it. We will launch three new flavours in March 2017. Black Forest Ice Cream Cake does well. There is a huge movement in the bakery-cum-ice cream section. Earlier it was only Cassatta. Now with ice cream, it has changed the entire paradigm. From the feedback that I’ve received from Spencer’s and other stores, Black Forest Ice Cream Cake is a win-win for kids. They get to cut a cake, which is also an ice cream! 

Now we are thinking about consumers who live in nuclear families and those who are single... how they can enjoy their cake. The pack is too big for nuclear families. We are thinking of single serves but we don’t want any manual intervention in the production. That’s why we will import a machine in the next few months that will automatically slice and pack.  

Delhi has Mother Dairy lassi vending machines. When will you launch it in Calcutta?

At present, there’s no plan because it’s a fresh product and we don’t have a lassi-producing unit here. I am working on a business module. It’s yet to be scaled up. There are 250 machines in Delhi. The idea came from my PepsiCo days. The problem is once we open it (lassi container), it has to be sold off that day because it can’t be stored. Pepsi and Coke can be sealed but we can’t do it with lassi. But lassi tetrapacks are available in Calcutta.  

Have you thought of launching a mobile application? 

It’s not that we are not brainstorming on it. E-retailing is here to stay but I don’t know how many present players will stay. If consumers are looking for discounts, then it won’t be the case because that is how the companies are closing down. I might have my own app but then I wonder, would I be able to cater to 100 per cent of household demand? Will a consumer go to different apps to buy different products? Or would they like to go to one place and get all the products? We are working on whether we want to become e-retailers or not. However, the model can be used in generating loyalty and tying up with other retailers.

What are your plans to maximise sale during Durga Puja? 

We will be there in at least 150 stalls with our entire range of ice creams, lassi, dahi, milkshakes and other products in and around Calcuta and south Bengal. We will also be there in 10 big puja pandals in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. After Delhi, Bangalore has a huge Bengali population. Soon, it will have more Bengalis than Delhi. 

Mother Dairy has three mother brands — Mother Dairy (dairy products), Dhara (edible oil) and Safal (fruits, vegetables and processed value-added items)... 

Yes, Dhara is the refined cooking oil brand and Safal is the frozen edibles brand. But 80 per cent of our business comes from dairy. 

Ratnalekha Mazumdar