INDUSTRIAL VISIT: Yakult
Location: Yakult Danone India Pvt. Ltd.
Plot no. 402-405 & 410-413, Food Park,
HSIIDC, Rai, Sonepat, Haryana, 131029.
Date: 30th January and 15th Feb, 2018
Time: 11:00 AM – 5 PM
Branch and Number of Students: MBA (First year); 170 Students
Faculty: Dr Anju Gupta, Mr Nitin Walia, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Mr Anoop Kumar Gupta, Mr. Vivek Kuchhal, and Dr. Neeru Gupta
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An Industrial Visit to Yakult, Sonepat was organised on 30th January and 15th February, 2018 for MBA first year students. Sections B and C went on 30th January and Section A went on 15 February, 2018. The visit started with a brief presentation on company’s history, how it has evolved over the years and how Yakult’s USP - a probiotic drink helped company to be number one across the globe. Company’s representatives explained the concept of Probiotics which is live bacteria and yeasts that are good for your health, especially your intestines, which eventually improve human’s immune system. Raw material that is bacteriumLactobacillus casei is provided from a mother strain from Japan .
After a brief presentation, a visit to production facility was conducted where representatives showed the various production and testing facilities of Yakult and explained the complete production process of Yakult. The highlights of the Yakult production facility is given below.
Yakult has production capacity of over 10 lakh bottles (65ml) every day although demand is not that much and they are producing around 3 lakh bottles every day depending on the inputs from their sales department on daily basis. Yakult goes through 135 safety tests before reaching to consumers. Yakult has its own transportation services which look after its entire distribution network covering entire country. The maximum time for delivery at extreme ends of nation is 4 days. Yakult has some market competitors like Mother Dairy and Nestle but because of its USP( Probiotics), it’s enjoying a major market share and able to position itself as a health drink to improve the intestinal health and the immune system. As part of their marketing campaign, they have Shilpa Shetty as their Brand Ambassador, who does TV and radio commercials. Apart from advertisements, they introduced a concept of Yakult lady representatives, in which a woman delivers Yakult to consumers and teach them health benefits of it and even creating awareness in their neighbourhoods and giving away free samples. A total of 250 trained Yakult ladies are operational in various parts of India. Each lady is given extensive training and then allocated a specified area for propagation and delivery. The visit ended wth a group photograph and a small gift from Yakult. Overall, the visit was a great success and the students got a good industry exposure.
