The Dairy Olympics 2025, taking place from April 7-11 in the UAE, will be a key event for the global dairy industry, bringing together industry lead-ers, experts, and innovators. The main partner and Gold Sponsor of the event is Al Ain Farms, the leading dairy producer in the UAE, actively supporting the development of sustainable practices, innovations, and local production. In an interview with DairyNews.today, Milana Boskovic shared insights on key trends and challenges in the UAE dairy market, the specifics of local marketing, and the company’s plans for the future.
Milana, could you please tell us about Al Ain Farms? What are your company’s main areas of activity, and what role does Al Ain Farms play in the UAE market?
Al Ain Farms was one of the first companies in UAE founded by H.H. late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and today Al Ain Farms is largest inte-grated dairy and poultry company in UAE offering the highest quality prod-ucts in fresh and long life dairy, juice and camel milk products. The compa-ny contributes significantly to the food security of UAE and it is focused on driving its growth via innovation, sustainability, digital framework and social responsibility.
The dairy market in the UAE is rapidly evolving. What trends do you see in the market today, and how is Al Ain responding to these changes?
In terms of the category dynamics, yoghurt and sour milk products are ex-pected to continue to fuel UAE dairy market growth and are expected to be the largest dairy category by 2029 – surpassing drinking milk products (source: Euromonitor, 2024)
Key trends shaping the UAE dairy market are as following: private labels growth is showing a potential consumer shift toward more affordable op-tions, and on the other side, consumers are looking for opportunities for in-novation in segments like high-protein Greek yogurt and flavoured layer yo-gurts, with a growing focus on the clean labels with no added or reduced sugar.
Other influencing factors are the rising and fluctuating raw material costs and increased global shipping fees post are compressing input costs and profitability for dairy producers.
Al Ain Farms Group strategy is to maximize the shelf share and variety of consumer needs by offering different segments of brands fr om being an ex-clusive private label provider for UAE retailers, as well as having an offer from middle range affordability to premium brands so we can answer all consumer different needs. Focus on value added disruptive innovation is as second key element as the company was the first to offer locally produced organic dairy range, lactose free range, Greek Yoghurt Sugar Free Range and protein milk, as well as being the first local company to convert all its portfo-lio of juices to no sugar added range.
Our key focus is to continue delivering value for consumers in products that are produced locally, free of any additives, as well be a reliable provider, considering the impact of the geopolitical conditions, and always ensure availability of prod-ucts for consumers at affordable pricing.
At the same time, we are building a path for a more sustainable packaging in re-duction of plastic and reuse of materials.
As the Marketing and R&D Director for one of the leading brands in the region, what are the most significant aspects of marketing in the UAE’s dairy market? How does local marketing differ from other markets wh ere you’ve worked?
The UAE’s market is dynamic and diverse, and local marketing strategies must be adapted to meet the cultural, economic, and social characteristics that differentiate the UAE from other markets. The country itself consists of more than 200 different nationalities, and the marketing strategies need to be adapted to capture the largest chunks of consumers tribes, while con-tributing to constant brand health within those segments and help push brand trust for the rotation of products from shelf.
Working closely with Sales and Trade Marketing for the availability and visi-bility of products on shelf is a key factor of success also. Considering that most of our dairy business is in fresh, reaching more than 16,000 shops and delivering the products within 24hrs from production makes us the guardi-ans of the daily dairy nutrition.
The variety of consumers also means that the marketing approach has to be constantly updated and dynamical in order to maintain mental share of mind and keep constant track of consumer changing lifestyles to under-stand their consumption patterns, lifestyle changes, and media consump-tions. UAE has a extremely dynamic mobile population, so the marketing strategics, tactics and product developments constantly need to be updat-ed to keep track with the times and keep evolving to answer the changing consumer needs.
What are the key marketing challenges for your company in the region, and what strategies do you employ to overcome them?
UAE has an open global trade and open borders which means any company in the world can come and sell their product with easiness of regulations and taxes on the revenues. This in turn, puts a huge pressure on the intense competitions and market saturations, as both local players and internation-al brands vying for market share. With many global dairy brands entering the market, and the presence of strong local competitors, differentiating our brands becomes increasingly difficult.
We focus on strengthening our local footprint as it is a social responsibility of the company to continue producing core dairy products for the nation since inception in 1981. Additionally, we have an extremely strong distribu-tion network which enables us to reach across all areas of UAE in no time, and truly deliver on the meaning “local for local”.
We also follow the unique value propositions, such as premium products, health-focused offerings (e.g., lactose-free, high-protein, or probiotic dairy), and locally sourced ingredients (e.g., camel milk, which has very high cul-tural significance for our nation, as well as being uncharted territory yet for the superfood developments).
Our focus has also been on becoming a leader in the E-comm sales, as the E-comm sales have been growing +300% YoY, as well as working with our partners and retailers in ensuring the capitalization of strategic collabora-tions, as well as investing in the reverse cost engineering by producing most of our packaging on site with virgin materials.
Being local gives us extreme flexibility to be creative, flexible and agile in eve-rything we do so we can continue delivering constant value for our consum-ers, partners, and shareholders.
How do you manage to adapt your marketing strategies to the cultural diversity in the UAE and attract customers of different nationalities and social backgrounds?
Al Ain Farms invests a lot of its efforts into understanding the consumer market by research of consumer lifestyles, habits and dairy consumption patterns, plus following closely month on month KPIs based on Nielsen da-ta and the internal sales data to optimize the regional and consumers seg-ments.
We can identify different consumer segments and adjust brand strategies toward the same positioning in order to maximize shelf share and avoid our own brands cannibalization. In that sense, we pursue a holistic approach on the innovation, renovation and push strategies to be always close to differ-ent consumers and maintain our leadership market position across both dairy and poultry categories.
What innovations in marketing or Al Ain Farms product line do you plan for the near future?
Currently we are focusing on improving our sustainability footprint by reduc-tion in plastic usage and lightweighting bottles, and in terms of product de-velopment we are investing in both fresh and long-life dairy categories, as well as camel milk. Key Pillars that drive our innovation roadmaps are – Transparency & Authenticity, Premium Quality, Social Responsibility, Disrup-tive Innovation, Clean Label.
And the same time, we are working with key retailers to ensure some of the imported categories such as cheese, cream etc. are replaced with locally UAE made products.
What plans and goals do you have as Marketing and R&D Director for the next few years?
Since the region is full of many opportunities for the development in the in-dustry, goal and dream would be to see Al Ain Farms group grow significant-ly beyond the UAE borders and become a prominent regional player in pro-tein and beverages, recognized for its innovation capability and as a leader in sustainability.
Your company is the main partner of the Dairy Olympics, which will take place in April 2025. What opportunities does Al Ain Farms see in support-ing such events for strengthening your brand in the UAE and beyond?
The Dairy Olympics 2025 is a strategic platform for strengthening the Al Ain Farms brand. Additionally, networking and collaborating with potential part-ners and colleagues, as well as learning about trends beyond our region and new practices being implemented in the dairy industry.