(A periscopic commentary on the evolution of UHT milk in India) Kuldeep Sharma, Principal Mentor, Suruchi Consultants My tryst with UHT Dairy liberalization in India is around 18 months younger than our organization. The journey which began in 1990 has seen the growth of the Indian dairy industry from the liquid milk market perspective. Milk powder and other commodities were never the center stage activity for our organization at Suruchi Consultants. We have been tracking the liquid milk business very closely and UHT attracted our attention somewhere in 1996 when we got active at Nepal with our operations. We liked the concept and after coming back had lengthy discussions with various stakeholders. Interestingly, we observed that one of the major players in Nepal was using UHT milk process as an implicit positioning for their milk to have better shelf life without even displaying this advantage on the packing. The UHT madness and, that too, in paperbound packaging was becoming the topic for corner room discussions at established dairy plants by the turn of the century. I got the first close mega view of this technology at a trade fair at Cologne , Germany in 2000. I was impressed with the technology, speed, benefits , etc which this could give to the customer. By customer I mean even the intermediaries, large stores, logistics providers and other elements of the supply chain. By that time I was living with a conviction that “packaging is something that adds some value to a given product by adding a little of cost and it also protects the product and the customer from any kind of quality deterioration. The great words from one of the leading international players in UHT and aseptic packaging transformed my way of thinking ; the golden words were that a package should save more than what it costs. For the first time I understood the benefit of this technology at a macro . Though
global warming and environmental issues did not