Amul to launch tea brand now

VADODARA: They have brought milk and butter to your breakfast table and are ready to bake your bread. Now, Amul will serve you the morning cuppa as well by launching a tea brand. Some member unions of the Rs 6,711-crore Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets the Amul brand, already sell tea at concessional rates to their milk producers. After Banas Dairy in Banaskantha and Sumul Dairy in Surat, Amul Dairy in Anand and Panchamahals-based Panchamrut Dairy will follow suit.

"Without spending a single penny on marketing , we have been selling 50 metric tonnes of tea every month to farmers in Banaskantha district through our existing network for the past seven years," says GCMMF chairman Parthi Bhatol, who is also the chairman of Banas Dairy.

"We procure tea auctioned in Assam through our agent, package it at our dairy and supply directly to our milk societies. In turn, they sell it to milk producers. We now plan to scale it up for a larger market," he said.

A feasibility study commissioned by GCMMF has revealed that while it is difficult for a new entrant to penetrate urban tea markets where consumers are more brand conscious , Amul has direct access to 32 lakh farmers of Gujarat, making its indirect penetration in the rural market easier.

"We had started selling Sumul tea as an incentive for our farmers. As the demand increased , we reached out to consumers in Surat city along with towns like Bardoli," says Jayesh Desai, managing director of Sumul, which sells five metric tonnes of tea every month. Amul and Panchamrut dairies plan to model their tea business on Banas and Sumul ventures.