How Dutch Lady started life in PJ with sweetened condensed milk & grew right into a family title

Show me a comfort retailer or grocery store the place Dutch Lady’s iconic blue packaging is absent from the cabinets.

You’d most likely wrestle to take action, and I believe that alone speaks volumes in regards to the model’s recognition.

I’ve by no means actually given a lot thought to the place it originated from although, assuming that it was a world model—Dutch, most likely.

And I’m not precisely fallacious, however neither am I fully proper. It’s just a little difficult, and apparently, you would hint the model’s Malaysian presence again to Petaling Jaya.

Decades of dairy diversification

It all began with Royal Friesland Foods foraying into the Malay Peninsula in 1954. 

For a quick introduction, it was a Dutch firm that handled dairy and fruit-based merchandise. (In 2008, it merged with Campina, one other Dutch dairy firm, and got here to be often known as FrieslandCampina.)

Royal Friesland Foods needed to market sweetened condensed milk imported from the Netherlands in Malaysia and Singapore, so it fashioned Friesland (Malaya) Pte Ltd.

Almost a decade later, in 1963, it arrange Pacific Milk Industries (Malaya) and commissioned a manufacturing unit in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. 

This grew to become the dad or mum firm’s first abroad manufacturing facility, and was tasked with manufacturing sweetened condensed milk.

It was accomplished in 1965, and has continued churning out dairy merchandise for the previous few many years. 

1968 rolled round, and Pacific Milk Industries would make historical past by turning into the primary dairy firm to be listed on Kuala Lumpur and Singapore’s respective inventory exchanges.

Years would go, and in 1975, the corporate would once more make the information for 2 issues: a rebrand, and a brand new product.

Pacific Milk Industries would come to be often known as Dutch Baby for the subsequent decade or so, and would make Dutch Baby Modified Baby Food.

As the native dairy trade continued to mature, Dutch Baby didn’t relaxation on its laurels. 

It started manufacturing sterilised milk in plastic bottles in 1983, and in 1984 would once more change its title to mirror the additional diversification of its merchandise.

This is how it might change into the family title Dutch Lady Milk Industries (Dutch Lady), with the aim of making merchandise for shoppers of all ages.

In 1988, it might change into the primary to introduce formulated milk powder for kids in Malaysia, the model reported.

A 12 months later, it might delist from the Singapore Stock Exchange in accordance with the Malaysian authorities’s efforts to advertise the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.

Heading in direction of more healthy ambitions

Between the early 2000s and the flip of a decade, Dutch Lady would churn out extra adjustments. Namely, a brand new model brand, and the launch of its yoghurts and yoghurt drinks.

At the identical time, the corporate was engaged on making its merchandise more healthy. This led to the pivotal determination to stop their manufacturing of condensed milk in 2011.

“It was a tough decision, but the right decision,” then-Managing Director Tarang Gupta advised South China Morning Post in 2019. “Yes, it’s milk, but at the end of the day it has a lot of sugar. Then we started reducing sugar across the board.”

This included reformulating its Growing Up Milk to exclude sucrose, and finally its different merchandise adopted go well with.

Another change to its Growing Up Milk was the addition of extra Vitamin D to its formulation, which Gupta mentioned they have been the primary to do. “The rest of the market followed after,” he added. 

Championing native cow milk

Although the dad or mum firm of Dutch Lady is owned by a cooperative of Dutch dairy farmers, the model nonetheless performs a major position in championing native milk, and the native dairy trade as an entire.

In 2013, it launched the Farmer2Farmer programme. This noticed Dutch farmers coming to Malaysia yearly to share their century-old wealth of expertise, finest practices, and experience with native dairy farmers. 

Some of the issues targeted on within the programme embody good farming administration and administration, good milking/dealing with practices, good breeding and fertility programmes, hygiene administration, and extra.

These are finished with the aim of enhancing the standard and quantity of cattle uncooked milk in Malaysia.

Dutch Lady additionally formally established a strategic partnership with the Department of Veterinary Services Malaysia (DVS) in 2021.

Since Malaysia is aiming for a 100% Self-Sufficiency Level (SSL) for native recent milk manufacturing by 2025 as a part of the National Dairy Industry Development Programme, the partnership will additional drive improvement on this space.

As Dutch Lady moved into the 12 months 2023, it introduced a serious change to the enterprise as a part of its optimisation train for its dairy manufacturing operations.

Remember its Petaling Jaya facility? The milk powder operations there will probably be discontinued by May 31, 2023, the model focused.

Their new Bandar Enstek manufacturing facility may also not be pursuing the manufacturing of milk powder, however the firm assured that this shouldn’t have an effect on their merchandise within the Malaysian market.

In the identical November 2022 report, Dutch Lady additionally introduced that it will likely be discontinuing the manufacturing of a few of its different strains in phases over the subsequent two years.

Whether this may have an effect on Dutch Lady’s standing within the native dairy market continues to be unknown, however it’s possible that the model could produce other plans it merely hasn’t revealed.

The Malaysian marketplace for milk has been a somewhat attention-grabbing one to look at over the previous few years, as a result of we’ve seen fairly a shift in shopper behaviour from dairy to plant-based merchandise.

At least, that’s what could possibly be assumed from how manufacturers are ramping up the manufacturing of non-dairy milk. Last 12 months, we compiled a surprisingly strong checklist of manufacturers promoting non-dairy milk in Malaysia.

Even native recent milk model Farm Fresh has seen alternatives on this sector, and rolled out its personal vary of plant-based milk utilizing soy, oat, and almond.

Dutch Lady has all the time stood firmly on the assumption that dairy and its calcium content material are integral to our well being although, so it’ll be attention-grabbing to see the way it navigates the trendy shopper phase within the close to future.

• Learn extra about Dutch Lady right here.
• Read about extra Malaysian startup tales right here.

Featured Image Credit: Dutch Lady