Why do you want to enter dairy business ?

Why do you want to enter dairy business and become a dairy entrepreneur? This is the first step towards developing a link between yourself and your dream. One needs to introspect and find answer to this question before proceeding to even dream about it. This is true to any of the business which you plan to implement as a fresh startup.

In last over 30 years of our interactions with the entrepreneurs we have identified 5 key reasons which makes them inclined to dairy business. They may be listed as below.

a. Dairy is a profitable business

b. Dairy has an eternal demand in all the markets

c. Dairy is a very simple business and even our ancestor did it well.

d. There has been a shift in consumer behaviour towards protein rich healthy foods

e. We want to go back to our roots and do something for the coming generation.

However no one wants to know the reality. The truth for all the above points is given below:

a. Dairy is a very thin margin business and unless you have an innovative value added product at a reasonable scale, you can not make money. It is a business of longer gestation period.

b. The demand of dairy products is now getting challenged by emerging cults like Veganism. There have been a lot of opposition by other pressure groups against dairy to protect environment as well as cows against cruelty.

c. Dairy is not that simple a business because of its perishability. A mistake or breakage of cold chain at any stage is good enough to spoil the whole lot. It is a synthetic field of study by understanding all aspects of agriculture, chemistry, microbiology, engineering, technology and business management . It requires a lot os patience and experience to learn by getting your hands dirty.

d. There has been a major shift of consumers towards protein rich healthy foods but their protein sources may not be milk alone. If the dairy based brand is unable to create confidence in the consumer’s mind over authenticity , hygiene and food safety of the dairy product delivered then she might not buy it.

e. A house at a dairy farm is not a farm house. Going back to roots has more to do with the capability of one’s self to handle vagaries of rural environment and hardships related to livestock rearing. It is good to live with noble thoughts but very difficult to experience the pains associated during the implementation.

So I am not writing to demotivate any of you but trying to show you the real picture. So only enter if you have real reason to be in this sector and you are passionate enough to live with it in initial 4-5 years of real hardships. This also requires a good financial reserves/backing to support your family for such duration.

Once you have made up your mind then we we have highly structured online dairy entrepreneurship development programs at www.skilldairy.com to give you step by step instructions to own your start up journey. All the programs are designed and developed by me only to help you become the future dairy entrepreneur in the world.

Kuldeep Sharma : A Dairy industry expert known for his unbiased advice since 1990