Epigamia to add more flavour to yogurts

 Epigamia, the Greek yogurt brand of homegrown Drums Food International, has evinced plans to expand its retail presence over the next five years, even foraying into certain foreign markets.

Currently, Epigamia is sold through 4,000 touch-points across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Chennai. “In the next five years, we are aiming to retail Epigamia through 40,000 stores, expanding our presence to 15 cities. Besides, we’re looking to tap the Middle East markets of the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, in the second half of this calendar year, followed by Southeast Asia next year,” Drums Food International Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Rohan Mirchandani told DH.

Greek yogurt is not new to India, where people have been consuming similar variants of hung curd for thousands of years. Drums Food International — which also set up ice cream brand Hokey Pokey prior to launching Epigamia in 2015 — wanted to diversify into offering a natural, healthy, and protein-rich lifestyle product that could be consumed daily.

“While ice cream is a seasonal favourite, yogurt is non-seasonal. Also, Dahi (curd) has always been seen as a sidekick for any meal, and we wanted to make it the hero,” Mirchandani said.

Today, Epigamia’s portfolio contains eight variants of natural, mango, vanilla, honey banana, blueberry, green apple, strawberry and mulberry, within its 90 gm pack offering, while its snack pack range comprises cream and onion, jalapeno, mango and strawberry flavours. There are plans to add more flavours across either pack.

A pack of 90 gm yogurt holds 160 calories, and claims to contain the protein intake equivalent of 1.5 eggs or two cups of dal, apart from being 99% lactose-free. “We are now working on innovations to expand the product’s refrigerated shelf life to 60 days, from the current 15 days,” he said.

The company has its entire supply chain in India, while production takes place in Wada, near Mumbai. An in-house R&D team is involved in ensuring quality.

The size of the Indian dairy industry is $80 billion, of which, 15% is held by the curd and yogurt segment. Within this, yogurt alone is growing at 25% annually.

Last year, Drums Food International raised Series A funding of $6.6 million to push Epigamia. Over 1.5 million units of Epigamia were sold in March, with revenue growth of over 250% seen in the last 12 months.