After taking full control of Metro Dairy from the West Bengal government last year, Keventer Agro is planning to take the brand to the neighbouring Bihar, Jharkhand, and the northeast states.

resent across 32-36 per cent of the entire retail touchpoints in eastern India, which could be increased to 47 per cent.

In southern Bengal, the market size of the organised packet milk is estimated at around 1 million litre a day, of which the Metro Dairy brand has a 25 per cent market share. In urban markets, packet milk has a penetration level of 88 per cent while that is 30 per cent in rural areas.

Its other businesses, namely banana, manufacturing for Parle and ITC and exports are also poised to grow after Keventer completes its Rs 2.82-billion investment in its plant in West Bengal’s Barasat by the end of December.

“This facility can produce 0.4 million litres of milk a day, which will go up to 0.6 million litre a day,” Jalan said. In turn, he expects the group turnover to increase by 30 per cent to touch Rs 13 billion in the next two years.

To take on competition in the ice-cream space, the company has come up with two parlours in the city and plans to roll out another four. New flavours of ice-cream are also set to be launched in course of its expansion spree. In southern Bengal, it has a market share of 32 per cent in ice-creams.

Last year, the West Bengal government sold its 47 per cent stake in Metro Dairy to Keventer for an estimated Rs 855 million. It was the country’s first dairy project in a public-private partnership model that began in the early 1990s and was a tripartite venture between the West Bengal Milk Producers Federation Ltd, Keventer and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). NDDB later sold its 10 per cent stake to Keventer.

Post the takeover, private equity firm Mandala Capital pumped in $25 million into this company. Jalan said he was not looking at raising more funds now.