Dodla Dairy to Drive Summer Growth with High-Margin Products: MD
Dodla Dairy expects a significant shift in its product mix towards high-margin offerings such as curd and buttermilk if the summer turns out to be particularly hot, according to Managing Director Sunil Reddy.“If summer is really warm, as they're predicting it to be, we will see a huge change in product mix.
We get more offtake in high-return products like curd, buttermilk, and other such products, which are also high on margin. Even though the price might go up, we might be able to maintain the same margin profiles as we are doing now,” Reddy told NDTV Profit.The company has already passed on milk price increases to customers in February and March and may do so again in the first half of FY26 if required, the top executive said.Commenting on the price adjustments, Reddy explained that the company typically waits for two to three payment cycles—roughly one and a half months—before passing increased costs on to consumers.“If we get one quarter of lower price increases, it will be shown as an overall drop for that quarter.
Right now, we are maintaining even standards because price increases happened in mid-February and a bit of March, which we have been able to take the corrections and pass it on to the customers,” he said.Dodla Dairy classifies non-milk items as value-added products, with curd currently leading the segment. The company is also looking to expand its ghee sales, positioning it as the next major value-added product, Reddy revealed.He emphasised the company’s strategy of balancing growth and margin expansion.“We have to take the call on sacrifice between growth and margin.
We do not want to raise prices significantly for milk or other products because it has an impact on consumers, who may start consuming less. So we would like to balance that and keep it at these margins,” he stated.
Dodla Dairy Share Price Jumps Over 8% On Strong Q3 Numbers .Dodla Dairy is moving towards positioning itself as a dairy-focused enterprise rather than a pure FMCG company.“
The front end is an FMCG, but the back end is dairy. So when we call ourselves a dairy industry, we must be very careful that our back-end procurement is always a key focus area where we have to keep optimising costs and ensuring efficiency,” Reddy added.For the first nine months of FY25, Dodla Dairy sold an average of 11.5 lakh litres of milk per day, while curd sales stood at 366 metric tonnes per day.
The company aims to increase its milk production capacity to 25 lakh litres per day (LLPD), up from its current installed capacity of 24 LLPD.Dodla Dairy operates through a diverse distribution network, including retail parlours, distributors, and direct retail agents. It runs 14 processing plants across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, along with two plants in Kenya and Uganda.
As of December 2024, promoters held a 56.69% stake in the company, while FIIs, DIIs, and the public held 11.03%, 18.84%, and 10.44%, respectively.Shares of Dodla Dairy closed 3.27% higher at Rs 1,120 apiece on the NSE, while the benchmark Nifty50 ended the session The benchmark Nifty50 ended the session 32% higher at 22,907.6.
Source : DAirynews7x7 March 21st 2025 NDTV profit