Branding milk in Pakistan.

Byline: Muhammad Nadeem Malik

Everyone knows the famous adage from Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet, "What's in a name? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." However, in the modern business world, the name matters. It is the name, which becomes brand and then preference of the customers buying it. Even the staple products are not an exception to this branding and people mostly buy names and not the product. It may be easy to apprehend the importance of the brand name while buying high value items like electronics, equipment, machinery, vehicles etc.However, when it comes to basic needs like milk and water; it is difficult for some to appreciate the importance of branding.

It was almost impossible, especially in the underdeveloped and developing countries, to think of buying basic requirements like milk and water from retail outlets and super stores and that too branded ones. With a change in demographics by urbanization, rise of middle class, and more females opting to work outside their homes, the buying and consumption habits also changed. Convenience and flexibility were the latent needs that were to be fulfilled by the entrepreneurs.

Pakistan is the fourth largest milk producing country of the world with an estimated production of 55 billion litters of milk per annum. Milk Pak introduced the packaged milk in 1981 and provided an alternative milk procurement and consumption choice for the consumers. Packaged milk unlike fresh milk has a longer shelf life and is available in easy to handle multiple packaging options. Due to its convenience, the packaged milk got significant attention and acceptance of the consumers. The start of packaging milk in Pakistan is said to have an interesting background dating back to 1976 when Packages found surplus capacity at their unit producing packaging for beverages.

This made them to invest in vertical integration and have their own user of this surplus capacity giving birth to the idea of packaged milk in Pakistan. Since 1981 the year of its inception, Milk Pak enjoyed the monopoly for some time unless Haleeb emerged as a strong competitor in 1986 and challenged its market share. There was subsequently a merger between Milk Pak and Nestle in 1988 as Nestle Milk Pak.

There is significant acceptance for packaged milk in Pakistan and there has been a growing trend of shifting to packaged milk especially among middle and upper class households. However, their current share of the packaged...