1. Parag Milk Foods has built a diverse brand portfolio, from mass-market offerings to premium brands like Pride of Cows. How do you ensure consistent yet differentiated positioning across these brands?
At Parag Milk Foods, consistency comes from a shared backbone of values such as quality, nutrition, and farmer-first sourcing, while differentiation is driven by clearly defined brand roles. Each brand is built to serve a distinct consumer mindset, price point, and consumption occasion.
Mass brands like Gowardhan and GO are rooted in trust, familiarity, and everyday relevance, while Pride of Cows operates at the other end of the spectrum as a super-premium, single-origin, farm-owned brand with complete traceability. Avvatar, meanwhile, speaks to a modern, performance-driven consumer looking for clean, high-protein nutrition.
What keeps the portfolio cohesive is a central brand architecture and common sourcing philosophy, while what keeps it effective is discipline, ensuring that no brand tries to be everything to everyone. This clarity allows us to scale without dilution.
2. With competition intensifying in the dairy space, how do you plan to strengthen brand differentiation and consumer loyalty?
In today’s dairy market, differentiation comes less from claims and more from credibility. Our focus is on building defensible advantages such as integrated sourcing, product science, and consistent quality rather than short-term promotions.
We are strengthening loyalty by investing in value-added products that form a significant and growing part of our overall portfolio, while deepening engagement rather than chasing reach alone. Brands like Pride of Cows and Avvatar grow through education, transparency, and repeat usage.
Loyalty also comes from staying relevant. Whether it’s protein-led formats, lactose-free offerings, or premium dairy innovations, we are aligning product development closely with evolving consumer needs rather than reacting to competitors.
3. What has been your most successful marketing or brand storytelling initiative in recent years, and what made it click with consumers?
One of our most impactful shifts has been moving from visibility-driven marketing to purpose-led storytelling. Campaigns where the product truth was clear and the narrative was culturally relevant delivered the strongest results.
For instance, participation Gowardhan and GO brands in the impact led properties like KBC, Super Dancer to name the few. Alongside, Avvatar’s digital-first approach helped reposition protein from a niche fitness product to a lifestyle choice, contributing to strong growth across e-commerce, which now accounts for nearly one-third of Avvatar’s sales. Similarly, Pride of Cows grew not by advertising but by consistently communicating traceability, farm ownership, and nutrition education.
What made these initiatives work was restraint. Saying less, but meaning more, and allowing the product experience to reinforce the story.
4. In an age where consumers expect authenticity and transparency, how does Parag communicate trust and product quality through its campaigns?
Trust is no longer built through messaging alone; it’s built through systems. At Parag, transparency is embedded into how our products are made, sourced, and delivered.
For premium brands like Pride of Cows, this means end-to-end traceability from farm to consumer. For Gowardhan, GO and Avvatar, it means communicating our integrated supply chain, from cattle feed to cold processing, without overclaiming. Across brands, we increasingly rely on education-led content rather than promotional language.
Consumers today are quick to question exaggerated promises. Our approach is to provide them with access to facts such as protein/ nutrition content, sourcing details, and quality benchmarks and let that transparency earn trust organically.
5. How do you see the FMCG sector transforming in the next decade — and where does Parag Milk Foods aim to lead that change?
The FMCG sector is moving from scale-led growth to value-led growth. Over the next decade, consumers will increasingly reward brands that combine nutrition, provenance, and consistency rather than just availability.
We believe the future lies in functional, clean-label, and purpose-driven products. Dairy will no longer be seen only as a commodity, but as a nutrition platform, spanning protein, gut health, and lifestyle needs.
Parag Milk Foods aims to lead this shift by becoming a nutrition-led dairy FMCG company, where innovation, sustainability, and farmer integration work together. Our investments in overall infrastructure, R&D, whey protein, premium dairy, and ESG infrastructure reflect this long-term view.
6. Can you share the story of your journey into Parag Milk Foods? What early experiences shaped your leadership style and your approach to building brands?
I joined Parag Milk Foods as a management trainee, intentionally starting at the grassroots despite being part of a family-run business. Those early years, working across procurement, supply chain, and sales, gave me a deep respect for execution and for the people who make the system work every day.
Growing up around our dairy operations taught me that brands are built from the inside out. You cannot market what you don’t fundamentally understand. That belief shapes my leadership style: data-led, consumer-focused, yet grounded in operational reality.
It also influenced my approach to brand building: long-term, disciplined, and rooted in substance rather than hype. (Wil provide by Pournima Maam)
- When you think about the next 5–10 years for Parag Milk Foods, what excites you the most?
Working on the soil health, betterment of the farmers livelyhood and increasing per cow yeild excite me the most alsongside with the opportunity to redefine how Indian consumers view Indian dairy landspace. New-age businesses like Pride of Cows and Avvatar have already grown significantly over the last three years and now contribute close to 9% of our overall revenue, showing what’s possible when innovation meets trust.
The next phase is about scaling platforms responsibly, expanding distribution, entering new markets, and deepening our nutrition-led portfolio, while staying true to our sourcing and quality principles.
Beyond numbers, it’s exciting to build an organisation that balances growth with responsibility, to farmers, consumers, and the environment.
8. What advice would you give young leaders, especially women, looking to make their mark in FMCG or family-run businesses?
My advice would be to earn your credibility through depth, not designation. Spend time understanding the business at the ground level, including products, people, and processes, before trying to lead transformation.
Especially, clarity of role and professional rigour matter. You have to separate legacy from entitlement and bring fresh thinking without disregarding institutional knowledge.
For women leaders, confidence grows with competence. Focus on building expertise, ask the right questions, and don’t rush visibility. Sustainable leadership is built quietly long before it’s recognised publicly.
