Amul to have nationwide retail outlets

This news might worry not only the mom and pop store owners but even the big retail chains. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation is planning to add to its existing 1100 Amul outlets and scale it to 10,000 by 2010. It plans to reach 3,000 by 2007-end.

An Amul parlour is a one-stop shop for all of Amul’s products which includes milk, cheese, butter, ice creams, beverages, pizza, chocolates and other milk products. The co-operation has hired NID people to design the outlets.

Presently, the parlours are present in campuses of Infosys, Wipro, IIM-A, IIT-B, Somnath temple, Dwarka temple, Metro rail and railway stations in Gujarat, all huge potential markets. To reach the target Amul would require to open on average 10 outlets every day.

Amul is also on process of continuous innovation and introducing new products. It is the market leader in Ice Cream and expects to sell ice cream worth Rs.378 crore in FY08. It has also signed an MoU with AAVIN of Tamil Nadu to jointly manufacture and market milk products.

Among the new category Amul has forayed is in the health and energy space. It launched a health drink, Stamina made from milk with vitamin C. A new ice-cream Stamina Candy contains ingredients essential for body development of all age groups. It also recently introduced the Probiotic and sugar-free variants of ice-cream to cater to health conscious and diabetic customers.

In the offing are a new product “Spanish Delight” which is a mixture of Rasogallah and ice cream. Another is a sugar-free chocolate targeting the 1 crore diabetic population of India called Choco-Mini.

Anyone could hardly doubt on the feasibility of Amul’s retail expansion, owing to the tremendous brand and quality. Considering, the easy criteria, it would surely get good response from franchisees. It could also augment Amul’s existing ‘Cyber Store’ where it give free home delivery for products nationwide for a minimum order of Rs.200.