Fonterra in 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 packageunveiling 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 has been impounded in 2008 and 2013 over contamination scares.
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 made up mostly of grains, leading to an absence of some proteins and micronutrients.
‘‘Our Anchor full cream milk powder comes with more than 23 nutrients including protein, calcium, vitamins and minerals.’’
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.
The Bangladesh market created an exciting growth opportunity to bring dairy nutrition to more consumers through partnerships ‘‘so we can do well, by doing good’’, Sethi said.
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’’.
One of the most popular milk powders used in Bangladesh comes from the milk off dairy farms in Victoria, Australia, where it is turned into instant full cream milk powder at Fonterra’s Cobden site.