Fonterra signs big Bangladesh deal

Fonterra has signed a new sole distribution agreement to make Anchor milk powder available to millions more consumers in Bangladesh.

‘‘We currently sell over 28,000 metric tonnes of dairy ingredients to local food and beverage manufacturers in Bangladesh, every year. That’s a great start, but there’s lots more opportunity on offer,’’ Fonterra’s managing director of Sri Lanka and Indian subcontinent, Sunil Sethi, said.

Fonterra’s media release this week was pre-empted in the The Bangladeshi

Post newspaper, which reported on the exclusive deal with ACI Agrolink last month after Anchor Milk held a package-unveiling ceremony in the Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Fonterra’s trade with Bangladesh hasn’t been without hiccups – powder imported to Bangladesh was impounded in 2008 and 2013 over fears of contamination.

Fonterra and New Zealand government officials subsequently sent a delegation to Bangladesh to explore trade proposals.

In January 2017 a delegation led by Fonterra director John Monaghan visited Dhaka and submitted a trade proposal to the Bangladeshi government.

The Anchor powder was sold in a formulation called NutriShakti, ‘‘a nutribundle’’, Sethi said.

According to the Bangladesh National Nutrition Policy 2015, the diet of most Bangladeshis is principally grains, leading to an absence of some proteins and micronutrients.

Sethi said the population of Bangladesh has grown by more than 10 per cent in the past decade to more than 160 million people and it now makes up 2 per cent of the world’s population.

A spokesman for ACI Agrolink welcomed the new arrangement, which would ‘‘enrich people’s lives by supplying safe, high-quality dairy nutrition to the people of Bangladesh’’.