Say cheese!

According to a Nielsen study this March, the overall cheese offtake across the top 35 cities increased by 27% in 2010 over 2009. The growth has been led by Mumbai, followed by New Delhi, and Chandigarh, says Girish Aivalli, Yes Bank’s head of food and agribusiness research. Pune-based Parag Milk Foods has set up a cheese-making unit with an annual capacity of 15,000 tonnes to 16,000 tonnes. The other two large cheese makers in India, Amul and Schreiber Dynamix (Britannia’s major supplier), have been operating at near full capacity and expansions are inevitable.

“In the last three to four years, there has been a positive correlation between rising incomes and increased consumption of products like cheese,” says Vinod Menon, head of the dairy business at Britannia. With the Rs 500 crore market growing at a CAGR of 15% every year, everyone’s looking for a slice.