Britannia Bel Foods has opened a state-of -the-art cheese plant in the western Indian state of Maharashtra to produce 16,000 tonnes of cheese per year. The company is a joint venture established in 2022 between France’s Bel and Britannia Industries, one of India’s largest food companies founded in 1892, known for a wide range of products, including bread, biscuits, sweets, snacks and dairy products.
The collaboration aims to produce and market, in addition to Paneer , of which 10 thousand tons are expected per year, the traditional fresh cheese very common in northern India, also 6 thousand tons of Cheddar and Mozzarella , the latter cheese increasingly popular. The agreement also aims to strengthen Britannia’s presence in the dairy sector and to provide local milk producers with a stable source of supply.
India is a world leader in milk production, with steady progress since the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) launched Operation Flood in 1970, which doubled the quantity of milk available to every Indian in 30 years.
Production is now truly impressive: around 188 million tonnes of milk obtained every year from more than 70 million producers spread across villages across the country and a model based mainly on cooperatives that help farmers sell their milk without intermediaries. In addition to drinks, ice creams, creams, cheese consumption is also growing, especially in urban areas where there is greater exposure to different international cuisines . People in India tend to prefer fresh and creamy cheeses, but aged cheeses are also increasingly appreciated and used in different culinary preparations, from salads to curries.
In this context, the presence of large French operators stands out . Lactalis began investing in India in 2014 with the acquisition of Thirumala Milk Products to serve the southern states market and subsequently acquired other dairy companies such as Anik Industries and Prabhat Dairy to expand its presence. It recently announced that it would double its investments to around $120 million to improve the capacity of its facilities and technologies. Danone, for its part, after leaving the Indian dairy market in 2018 to focus on nutritional products such as Protinex and Aptamil, returned in 2024 with an investment of around $21.5 million to distribute its products in 25 cities.
These investments demonstrate the continued interest of French multinationals in the Indian market, focusing on expanding their production and distribution capacities , but also investing in agricultural development programs to support local producers to improve their practices for a stable supply of high-quality milk.
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