FAISALABAD: Interloop Holdings, a Pakistani conglomerate that mainly supplies textile products to global sportswear giants, is expanding its footprint into the dairy sector with plans to export premium mozzarella cheese to the Gulf region through a joint venture (JV) in Turkiye, the group’s chairman has said.
The conglomerate, best known globally for manufacturing socks and leggings for brands such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Target, H&M, Marks & Spencer and Zara, operates large-scale textile and apparel units in Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It now aims to diversify its portfolio and boost Pakistan’s non-textile exports through its dairy arm, IRC Dairy Products Ltd.
IRC and its Turkish JV Rella Gida are processing 120,000 liters of milk daily to produce Turkish mozzarella cheese and butter for clients in Pakistan, Eurasia and the Far East.
Interloop Holdings Chairman Musadaq Zulqarnain told Arab News in an interview he will travel to Turkiye this month to discuss with Rella Gida the prospects of starting exports to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) market, which he says spends more than $2 billion on cheese and butter imports annually.
In 2024, GCC countries imported cheese and butter worth $2.3 billion, with Saudi imports alone amounting to $980 million, said Zulqarnain, whose IRC Dairy gets nearly 10 percent of its revenues from exports and plans to boost them.
