NEW DELHI, July 22: Yakult Danone India today said it will increase the production of probiotic milk products by 50 per cent at its Haryana unit by end of this fiscal to meet the growing domestic demand.
Yakult Danone India Pvt Ltd is a 50:50 joint venture between French firm Danone and Japanese company Yakult Honsha for production and sale of probiotic products in India. It entered the Indian market in 2008.
“We are now manufacturing two lakh bottles per day. We will scale this up to three lakh bottles per day by the end of this fiscal,” Yakult Danone India Managing Director Minoru Shimada told PTI.
The company will gradually increase the production to fully utilise the installed capacity of one million bottles per day at its factory in Sonepat, Haryana, he said.
Asked if more factories would be set up to meet the growing demand, Shimada said,”We expect demand to grow by 15- 17 per cent in the next five years. In the long term, we want to set up factories in South and West India in order to reduce the logistic costs.”
Much of the current sale is coming from north India even as the company has established a strong distribution network to boost sales in western and southern region, he said.
Yakult Danone has 40-50 per cent share in Indian probiotic products market of about Rs 100 crore. Its key competitors are Amul, Mother Dairy and Nestle India.
According to the company, Yakult is a probiotic drink containing 6.5 billion beneficial bacteria that helps improve digestion and build immunity.
Japanese firm Yakult sells probiotic products in more than 30 countries. (PTI)
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