Oman National Dairy Products Company (ONDP) rebounded last year after a lean year and is now hitting an all-time high in sales, the company reports. The conversion from a disastrous situation to a success story was made possible thanks to a total restructuring of operations and reinforcing of focus on consumer needs, remarks a senior official. ONDP, a public limited company with WJ Towell as the main shareholder, is proving a model for companies struggling to find their feet.

Founded in 1976, it was one of the first plants of its kind to be set up in the Middle East and one of the first there to be awarded the ISO 9002 certification (1997). In the 1990s it was the recipient of several prestigious Omani and foreign awards including one for being the best Gulf enterprise and another that came from a European organisation. The company exports longlife products, mainly juices, to 25 countries across the Middle East, Africa, the Far East and the Indian subcontinent.

"We've put in new life in our longlife drinks ...We've launched Funnan, a fruit drink, in Oman," said general manager for sales and marketing Rakesh Kapoor. "The product is doing extremely well and will be gradually introduced in other Gulf countries. It has the right elements of a total marketing mix." The drink, enriched with vitamins A and C and available in orange and mango flavours, is being promoted as "meeting the aspirations of the youth of the new millennium"

Other recent new products were butter and ghee. The product range covers long life fruit juices; pasteurised fruit juices and fruit drinks; yoghurt and yoghurt drinks; milk powder, cheese and cream products; ice creams; long life milk and flavoured milk.

Most of the company's products are marketed under the flagship Zain ( meaning 'good' in Arabic) brand. Coming under that label are all products except small-cup ice creams and two fruit drinks (mango and orange) targeted at young children and sold under the Tamam brand: pasteurised juices, launched in 1999 in gable-top packs and sold under the NutriFresh brand, and the fruit drinks for youth marketed under the Funnan brand. The NutriFresh and Funnan packs also have the brand name Zain inscribed.

To emerge from the slump in 1999, the company recruited new, experienced hands and restructured operations involving not just marketing but other departments as well, as a result of which the company has a very strong back-up team in production and logistics. The company has a network of distributors in the Gulf and three export managers - each for the GCC, the Levant and other countries. Kapoor and the general manager are actively involved in the key markets comprising Oman and the Gulf. ONDP has one of the largest distribution infrastructures in Oman for chilled, frozen and dry food products and direct coverage of more than 5,000 retail stores in the country. "We take consumer and customer feedback very seriously and act on it proactively. We try to understand their needs and see how they can be adopted to improve production and services," said Kapoor. "When we received the ISO 9002 certification in 1997, it was more of an internal discipline requirement than just getting a certificate." The company has maintained the recovery and expects 2001 to be "an exciting year" on the basis of good showing in the first half. One strategy the company employed for marketing its successful Funnan fruit drink was to concentrate on customers through the distributor network in Oman. Kapoor said a lot of consumer-focused "below the line" work was carried out, rather than going in for mass media advertising. It paid much attention to the packaging so that it would appeal to the target section, youth. The company has improved packaging of several other products as well.

It reports that milk flavours in strawberry, chocolate and banana are also doing well. In long life juices the company holds 45 per cent of the Omani market and is intensifying efforts to make a dent in the UAE market. Its Tamam fruit drinks, sold in 40 x 125 ml packs, have beaten the competition for items of their kind in Saudi Arabia.

ONDP's share of the ice cream market in Oman is said to be 40 to 45 per cent. There are no sales abroad, but the company is considering entering the regional market. The decision will be a major one involving big investment, including the purchase of freezers and refrigerated vehicles.

In yoghurt, ONDP's share of the Omani market was estimated at 35 to 40 per cent, with the top rank in the cumin-flavour category for yoghurt drinks (laban). ONDP claims to have the highest share of the local market at 50 per cent for long life milk, with a brand from Saudi Arabia coming second.

The company imports its raw materials mainly from Europe and boasts of state-of-the-art equipment. It prides itself at making Zain-brand juices from best-quality ingredients sourced from the finest orchards of the world.

It stresses that the juices are 100 per cent natural and free from any artificial additives or preservatives. The company has no technical collaborations for the making of its dairy and fruit products, but has introduced packing technology from reputed European firms TetraPak and Combibloc. Over the past quarter century, the company's products have become household names in the Sultanate. ONDP is also an approved supplier to a host of prestigious clients including the US Navy, Gulf Air, British Airways, Oman Aviation and Burger King and co-packs for several multinational brands.

It has won accolades including the Sultan Qaboos Cup for Industrial Excellence in 1992, the Sultan's certificates of excellence in 1993, 1994 and 1995, the Gulf News-DHL award for best Gulf Enterprise in 1995 and the Golden Europe Award for Quality in 1996.

The company is confident it will survive the competition even if all boundary barriers are removed totally in the region and, in fact, sees it as an opportunity to move regionally quicker. Kapoor says brands that are consumer-focused should survive and that ONDP's recent history has proved it can ride storms. It was the only player in Oman until 1995 when Gulf brands entered the local market. The company rode the competition and even disruption from a major fire in the factory to stay put and recover its fortunes. "Now that we have strengthened our sales and marketing, we're looking at new markets in the Middle East and beyond. The way for us is to be market-driven and expand," says Kapoor.