Amul to invest Rs 2,500 crore to raise milk processing capacity

Dairy major GCMMF, which sells products under the Amul brand, is planning to invest about Rs 2,500 crore to raise its milk processing capacity to more than 38 million litres per day in the next four years.

"There has been rise in milk demand across the country and therefore, we are planning to raise our milk processing capacity by another 10 million litres per day from current capacity of 28.1 million litres per day (mltpd)," Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) Managing Director R S Sodhi told PTI.

The cooperative is looking to raise the capacity by 2020, which will require an investment of about Rs 2,500 crore, Sodhi added.

"As of now, we are looking to establish one plant each for milk processing in Kolkata and Mumbai and two more plants in Gujarat. Besides this, we have plans to raise the capacity in few existing plants, " he said.

The cooperative has about 60 various processing plants, of which 40 are in Gujarat only. About 50 per cent of Amul's turnover comes from milk sale only, commodity business contributes 5-7 per cent and the rest comes from value-added products segment.

Besides milk, the cooperative is focusing on value-added products like cheese and has raised cheese producing capacity three times to 120 tonnes per day from 40 tonnes per day in the last six months, as it was unable to meet the rising demand, he added.

In the last six years, the dairy cooperative's turnover has jumped nearly three-fold to Rs 23,000 crore and is aiming to more than double it to Rs 50,000 crore by 2020, Sodhi said.

There are 17 member unions of GCMMF associated with more than 36 lakh farmers across 18,600 villages of Gujarat.

The member unions of GCMMF have also established their own milk processing plants in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan and is procuring milk from other states.