Mother Dairy forays into Delhi’s batter market

New Delhi: While Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) deferred its decision to launch idli and dosa batter, Mother Dairy made its foray into the batter market by test-launching idli & dosa batter in Delhi.

Mother Dairy, a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, introduced ‘fresh idli-dosa batter’ under its flagship ‘Safal’ brand in the national capital.

Priced at Rs 120/ kg pouch, it was made available for sale in select Safal outlets in Delhi. “For testing the market, Mother Dairy launched the product. Based on customer feedback, a full-scale launch would be made at the earliest,” sources in the Mother Dairy told DH.

“Once the full-scale launch is planned, the same would be sold in Bengaluru also as it is one of the major markets for wet batter. Safal has more than 20 outlets in IT city, which cater to 1.5 lakh customers daily,” said an executive from Mother Dairy.

The market for wet idli-dosa batter is valued at around Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 crore. Though the market is mostly unorganised, industry estimates only 10 per cent of the market is organised and dominated by the big brands - iD, Asal and MTR.

The wet idli and dosa batter market is growing at a rapid pace and has expanded at an annual rate of 15-25 per cent mostly in urban areas, say industry experts.

Earlier, KMF had planned to launch the idli and dosa batter under its flagship dairy brand Nandini in Bengaluru in October this year, but it was pushed to December.

However, the KMF deferred the launch, and a new date for launch was not announced. The KMF also planned to introduce the idli and dosa batter to other cities including the Delhi market as it has already introduced milk and milk products.