Thursday, 07 November 2019 17:39

India partnership new way doing things — Fonterra

Written by  Sudesh Kissun

Fonterra says its new partnership in India is an example of how the co-op is doing things differently.

The launch of Fonterra’s food service business with Indian partner Future Group is described as “a capital light partnership”.

Speaking at Fonterra’s annual meeting in Invercargill today, chief executive Miles Hurrell said the venture combines the co-op’s dairy knowledge and know-how, with Future’s Group’s access to market, established customer base, and strong marketing and distribution networks. 

“Combine these two skill sets together and you get more than the sum of its parts.”

 Through this partnership Fonterra will be exporting its Anchor Food Professionals products from New Zealand to India, where demand for dairy is expected to grow at seven times the rate of China over the next decade. 

“And the reason I raise this as an example is because I believe it highlights the change in our thinking,” Hurrell told about 200 shareholders at the meeting.

“In the past, we thought we needed to have physical assets on the ground in order to succeed. “We also had a wall of milk coming at us – which is not the case today.

“Now, under our new strategy, we are looking to leverage our dairy know-how through partnerships, which will allow us to exploit our intellectual property and enter markets that we might not otherwise have had access to, and to do so in a capital light way.

Hurrell says this is something Fonterra is looking to do more of under its new strategy.

More like this

Farmers' call

OPINION: Fonterra's $4.22 billion consumer business sale to Lactalis is ruffling a few feathers outside the dairy industry.

Wasted energy

OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis could have saved her staff and MBIE time and effort over ‘buttergate’ recently by not playing politics with butter prices in the first place.

Featured

Dr Mike Joy says sorry, escapes censure

Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.

People-first philosophy pays off

The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.

Farmer anger over Joy's social media post

A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.

National

Machinery & Products

JDLink Boost for NZ farms

Connectivity is widely recognised as one of the biggest challenges facing farmers, but it is now being overcome through the…

New generation Defender HD11

The all-new 2026 Can-Am Defender HD11 looks likely to raise the bar in the highly competitive side-by-side category.

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Buttery prize

OPINION: Westland Milk may have won the contract to supply butter to Costco NZ but Open Country Dairy is having…

Gene Bill rumours

OPINION: The Gene Technology Bill has divided the farming community with strong arguments on both the pros and cons of…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter