“Britannia Bel Foods Opens State-of-the-Art Cheese Factory in Maharashtra”

Britannia Bel Foods, the leading Cheese player in India, completes nearly two years from its inception as an ambitious joint venture. The company announces the inauguration of its Cheese factory in India dedicated to the local production of Britannia The Laughing Cow products, reinforcing its commitment to serving best quality products to Indian consumers made locally. Maharashtra stands as one of the largest states in milk production in India and offers a well-integrated mature dairy ecosystem that makes it an ideal location for the Cheese factory within Britannia’s Dairy food park in Ranjangaon.

Support to the local milk farmers and a robust milk procurement program.

The plant is fully integrated with a robust procurement program for milk from over 3,000 farmers in Pune and surrounding areas, sourcing ~4 lakh liters of 100% cows milk daily. Britannia has scaled up the procurement program at the milk collection level within a few years to 70 VL BMCs, installed within a 100 km radius of the factory, spreading across 10 tehsils in the Pune and near districts. This initiative supports the local farmers, ensures a sustainable supply chain, and reinforces Britannia’s commitment to community and agricultural development. Britannia’s Milk Collection Centres have advanced testing capabilities, ensuring that the raw milk quality is assessed across 31 quality parameters at site and 20 additional parameters at unloading before it is accepted in the factory.

To the needs of its over 3000 milk farmers, Britannia runs an integrated support program with three pillars of cattle management, breeding, and feeding. Such a program epitomizes enabling best farm practices-door-to-door animal health camps, training and breed training programs, quality fodder seeds distribution, and transparency through direct payment services to the farmer. The farmer program also had the integration of village development and malnourishment programmes under the efforts of Sir Ness Wadia Foundation and Britannia Nutrition Foundation.

New Step
On the launch of the factory with state-of-the-art facilities, a new step has been taken

With an investment of nearly 220 crores by the Joint Venture using the facilities of Britannia Dairy, the new Greenfield plant is located in one of the largest food parks in Maharashtra. It forms part of Britannia’s state-of-the-art dairy production facility that produces an entire range of Britannia dairy products, including now Britannia The Laughing Cow Cheese with a full range of products: slices, blocks, spread, diced, and cubes.

This facility is fitted with five production lines and has a production capacity of close to 6,000 tons per year for the natural Cheese varieties including cheddar and mozzarella and approximately 10,000 tons yearly for the processed Cheese.

This factory’s construction has thus furnished several employment opportunities and has massively contributed to the local economy in that region. Over the last couple of years, the Maharashtra State Government has provided tremendous support to Britannia Mega Food Factory at Ranjangaon by treating it as an Ultra Mega project and offering a tailor-made incentive package to Britannia. This has facilitated facilities for manufacturing the entire product range of Britannia across biscuits, cake, rusk, croissant, salted snacks, wafers, dairy drinks & powders & Cheese. The smooth rhythm for approval plans, licenses, infrastructures, developments, power, and various other factors by the state government also helped go a long way in benefitting this strategic investment.

The facility has state-of-the-art technology, including Pasteurizer, Bactofuge, auto-standardization units, through which top-class Cheese experience can be provided to the consumers. Cheddar, Mozzarella & Processed Cheese is being manufactured from world-class equipment imported from well-known global leaders of equipment manufacturers. This cutting-edge technology and practices ensure the highest food safety and quality standards, and hence premium Cheese products are being produced which is consistent with delivering the highest quality to the end consumers.

Britannia The Laughing Cow products designed for the Indian consumer

Globally, the powerhouse combination of Britannia Bel brings Britannia The Laughing Cow products portfolio to the Indian consumer—of the world’s best products for local consumer, made in India, and underpinned by 100-year old global brand backed by presence distribution 120 countries. Globally daily output of Laughing Cow portions is 20 million.

The Laughing Cow products have been tailored to the Indian market, holding an approach of fulfilling the Indian market preference and nutritional requirements through a homed approach. The secret of success lies in its unique Indian recipe, which is rich in 5 essentials, namely, protein, calcium, vitamin A, D, and B12, specifically tailored for Indians. The packing pattern is also optimized in accessibility, thereby making it easier to consume and reinforcing food security while maintaining strict hygiene standards. In fact, the use of 100% local ingredients reiterates the brand’s commitment to the Indian consumer: the ingredients are now sourced and processed in a new factory managed so carefully to ensure high-quality processing and sustainability in both primary and secondary transformation processes.

Commenting at the launch of this facility, Varun Berry, Executive Vice-Chairman and MD, Britannia Industries said: “Britannia is very deeply committed to the well-being and prosperity of the milk farming communities that are at the heart of our business. With support to over 3,000 milk farmers, our integrated farmer support program focuses on empowering them through sustainable cattle management, breeding, and feeding practices.”. We set new benchmarks on quality and sustainability by using our integrated milk procurement program and work with the very core of our supply chain – the dairy farmer. The choice of Ranjangaon is strategic, as Maharashtra state is the leader in milk production and well aligned with our vision for a hub of premium, locally sourced dairy products. We feel that this new cheese facility will further enhance the strategic partnership and commitment of Britannia and Bel Group toward spurring growth and innovation within the industry.

According to Bel Group CEO, Cécile Béliot: “I feel proud to celebrate with Britannia the start of a state-of-the-art cheese factory leveraging the Bel 160-years legacy of operation on cheese.”. It is also a very good time to celebrate the growth of our national distribution for the range of our Britannia The Laughing Cow products, and our triangular portion of processed cheese especially designed and designed to please millions of children in India. We aim to generate healthier and more sustainable food while creating value with our ecosystem, accessible products responsive to local nutritional needs. I believe that the joint venture between Britannia and Bel, and even more so now with the opening of this plant has all the right know-how and market capabilities to take a leading position with Britannia The Laughing Cow in India.

Abhishek Sinha, CEO Britannia Bel Foods Private Limited said, “Britannia Bel Foods’s state-of-the-art Cheese facility brings the best of Bel Groups’ global expertise to India by commingling cutting-edge technology with best-inclass manufacturing standards. This plant embodies our commitment to delivering premium, locally made Cheese that meets the highest benchmarks in quality and innovation”. This facility further cements the relationship between Britannia and Bel, and the journey of further strengthening our Cheese business in India, supported by a fully integrated dairy program. We are, therefore, well-positioned to offer Indian consumers an unparalleled Cheese experience, tailor-made according to their changing tastes.