National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) southern region sees that the major strength of the traditional dairy product sector in India is the mass appeal of a wide variety of products.
The market of these products far exceeds that of the Western dairy products like milk powder, table butter and cheese. “The operating margins of the traditional products are also much higher than those of the Western dairy products because of value addition,” explained K Jayaraj Rao, senior scientist, dairy technology section, NDRI, southern region.
Functional foods or health foods are those value-added foods having health-promoting or disease-preventing properties in addition to providing one or more basic nutrients and energy. “Globally, it represents a fast-growing sector of the food industry,” he added.
“The global functional food market is growing at 7 per cent with Japan and USA being the leading countries in the fray. The value addition can be done by new product development, modification of existing products, sugar replacement, processing and convenience. It can also be done by enhancing the functionality and shelf life,” pointed out C N Pagote, principal scientist, dairy technology section, NDRI, southern region.
The two senior scientists from NDRI southern region were quoted from an international symposium on ‘Recent trends in processing and safety of specialty and operational foods’ in their abstracts of technical papers by the Defence Food Research Laboratory, Mysore.
“Value addition can be done by new products because consumers are always willing to try out new products and accept them even if it meant some additional cost. There is need to encourage the development of sweets and delicacies known to each region. This was where NDRI too was engaged in the development of the traditional delicacies like kunda and khoa jelabi. These products can be produced on industrial scale, marketed throughout the country, allowing people to savour such delicacies which were hitherto unknown,” added Pagote and Rao.
Milk and milk products, being the second-largest agricultural by-products segment in India, plays a vital role in the agricultural economy. The product ranks next only to rice but exceeds wheat produced in the country.
The milk product market is estimated at Rs 65,000 crore. However a large part of the production of milk sweets is in the hands of the unorganised sector. In spite of these limitations, the country’s high value and high volume market for traditional dairy products and delicacies is all set to boom under technology of mass production. The market is the largest in value after liquid milk and is estimated at US$3 billion in India and US$1 billion overseas. Around 900,000 tonnes of khoa valued at Rs 45,000 million and 1,200,000 tonnes of channa valued at Rs 6,000 million is produced in the country.
“The value of khoa and channa produced is probably twice the value of all milk handled by the organised sector in India. Traditional Indian dairy products like their agricultural counterparts are grossly undermanaged. Therefore, there is an opportunity to take advantage of the niche market for dairy products of Indian ethnic origin meeting the quality standards of the global market,” the scientists pointed out.
