Odisha Start-up Unveils Dairy-based Health Drink

BHUBANESWAR:  Odisha’s first venture capital funded startup Milk Mantra has gone national with the launch of MooShake, a dairy-based health drink.

The first milk product in the country to be blended with curcumin, a turmeric extract, has been launched in Bengaluru.

“In India, drinking haldi mixed milk has been an age-old tradition. Now there is significant amount of scientific research proving the fat molecules in milk aid curcumin absorption in the body. We at Milk Mantra thought of bringing in a first-of-its-kind health drink combining both,” founder and managing director Srikumar Mishra said.

The product, developed in collaboration with the Tetrapak Product Development and Innovation Centre, Pune, will also be launched across  metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad within the next couple of months. It will be available in Bhubaneswar by mid-June.

Milk Mantra has expanded to the dairy-based health drink platform after raising Rs 80 crore from Fidelity Growth Partners India along with Aavishkaar India, which had been the angel investor for the startup, in June last year.

The company is also augmenting dairy production capacity from 1.25 lakh litres to three lakh litres. It currently produces Mily Moo brand of milk, paneer, probiotic yoghurt, curd buttermilk and lassi through its frontline facility at Gop in Puri district and the Westland Dairy at Sambalpur, which it acquired for Rs 10 crore last year.

“We had a turnover of r75 crore last year and expect to cross r100 crore this year,” Mishra said.