It was pleasantly cool in the exhibition halls and the conference centre of the southern India city of Chennai (Madras). Outside the temperature was just under 40 degrees Celsius. The persistent monsoon rains had flooded the streets and driven the Tsunami victims from the previous year out of their temporary homes.
At the stand of the CIMA dairy company at FoodPro, a pan is bubbling away with a typical Indian snack called ‘galub’. It is sweetened condensed milk from which Indian ethnic sweets are made.
Social structure
Inside the conference hall, packaging expert Mr Dasgupta of Hindustan Lever Ltd (Unilever) was contending that the social structure of the Indian population is clearly changing. Whereas in 1994 some 48% of the Indian population considered themselves likely to become better off in time, five years ago that group was no less than 78%. And the percentage of people whose position is only deteriorating fell in this period from 48% to 33%. ‘This improvement in expectations has consequences for the demand exhibited by the Indian consumer,’ explains Dasgupta. ‘Consumers want more packaged products, as a way to guarantee food safety. Quality, longer shelf life, smaller portions and user friendliness are all aspects that go hand in hand with that. Moreover, the Indian consumer wants to see the product. Glass and plastic in all their variety meet this need, but due to the fragility of glass and the less than optimum logistics chains, plastic packaging will outstrip glass in the short term.’
The Office of the Agricultural Counsellor in New Delhi provided a good information stand at FoodPro, in cooperation with the Netherlands Business Support Office in Chennai.
PUM
Crowding round the Dutch embassy stand were various exhibitors whose roots are in the Netherlands. The first to start a conversation was Bimal Nanda of Three Rings Exports & Imports company based in Nagar. While pressing his business card into your reporter’s hand, and introducing himself as the official agent of Zwanenberg Foods in the Netherlands, he said he’d very much like to import cheese from the Netherlands into the south of India. Exhibitor Krishnaswamy was praising the PUM Foundation set up by the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW). Retired Dutch experts are volunteering to share their expertise with small and medium-sized companies free of charge. As PUM´s
Indian representative, Krishnaswamy gets a lot of questions directed at him. Most, he says, relate to the textile sector and food industry, as well as to environmental protection. Based in Chennai, Krishnaswamy receives fewer questions from the Indian dairy industry. He thinks this is due to the PUM criteria. The PUM experts work with Indian companies with fewer than 700 employees and a turnover less than EUR 40 million. Most milk-processing companies are bigger than this. Marcel Bogerd works for Systemate Numafa in Numansdorp near Rotterdam. One of his company’s roles is supplier to the dairy industry. The company has supplied Nestlé in Poland and Tunisia with equipment for the aseptic pouring of desserts into their containers. Negotiations are currently under way with the Indian Mother Dairy co-operative for the purchase of a washing machine for crates.
The co-operative transports its pouches of drinking milk in plastic crates. But, says Bogerd, ‘India is a difficult market for us. We focus our efforts on efficiency and work reduction. What’s more, our equipment is quite expensive as a consequence of the CEE guidelines in the EU. Under these, equipment builders for the food industry have to take account of things like ISO, HACCP and other quality assurance systems. In India there are enough people willing to work for low wages, and quality is a concept that’s just getting off the ground so assurance is less of a priority than in the EU.’ Nevertheless, these systems are finding a foothold in India, according to P. Rajkumar,vice president of FoodCert India, based in Hyderabad, an Indian city of over one million inhabitants.
This certification institution, which was founded in the Netherlands, launched in India in 2001 and now has 12 employees in Hyderabad. It is also the only institution working closely with the Indian government. ‘We started introducing HACCP systems in 2002. A year later we started assessing fruit and vegetable companies against the requirements of EurepGAP. Today we are also active in the Indian dairy sector. Finally, FoodCert India has made agreements in Sri Lanka to expand its activities into that country,’ says Rajkumar. Finally, a Belgian company and a Dutch company are represented at the stand held by the Dynatech Marketing Company, Mumbai (formerly Bombay).
Regional manager Hans Sanders of Cobelplast in the Belgian city of Lokeren relates that his company is selling a lot of polystyrene packaging for yoghurt production as well as multilayered foil for coffee creamers. Sander Schwartz is an area manager with Goudsche Machinefabriek BV, in short GMF-Gouda, whose head office is today in Waddinxveen. The company, founded in 1909, was the first in the Netherlands to build a milk-powder machine for the dairy industry and has since developed many machines that it has patented. ‘India could be an interesting market for us. We could, for example, sell drum dryers, for use in the production of milk powder and to companies making baby food’, suggests Schwartz cautiously
Article from India Dossier, ZuivelZicht - 14 december 2005  |