20 December 2007 - Yakult Honsha of Japan and French Groupe Danone's Indian joint venture, Yakult Danone India, has launched the probiotic drink “Yakult”. The company hopes to sell at least 100,000 bottles a day in 2008-2009.
To achieve this goal, the company has established a manufacturing facility at Rai Food Park (Haryana) and has already invested Rs 136 crore (about USD 34 million) in the project, reports the Indian press.
The press reports add that Yakult Danone India may invest a further Rs 100 crore (about USD 25 million) to streamline distribution, marketing and brand promotion activities over the next 3-4 years.
Previously, FLEXNEWS reported that “Yakult” was launched in the US market in September of this year.
Yakult Honsha claims that 8 million bottles are consumed daily in Japan alone.
Yakult Danone India will face competition from another Indian dairy company. Indeed, Amul started selling ice creams enriched with the bacteria in June of this year. Amul expects its probiotic ice creams to help increase its 37% market share in India's ice-cream market by 10 percentage points.
The Indian Dairy Association sees Indian milk production growing at 3.5-4% per annum, and probiotic products even growing even faster at 15%.