Heritage eyes more milk from coastal districts

Heritage Foods India Limited (HFIL) has set sights on coastal districts to increase its milk procurement.

The company's present milk procurement from the five coastal districts "� East and West Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam "� is 30,000 litres per day, which it wants to increase it to 2 lakh litres a day by 2008, said N V Venkata Rao, vice-president (procurement and inputs), HFIL.

To meet the enhanced procurement targets, Heritage has lined up an investment of Rs 5 crore. "HFIL is spending around Rs 5 crore on new milk chilling centres and bulk coolers," Rao told Business Standard.

It is also expanding the capacity of its milk packing units at Bhayyavaram and Pamarru to 50,000 litres from the present 30,000 litres.

This apart, HFIL is planning to set up another 5-7 bulk coolers in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts, Rao said.

The company had recently set up bulk coolers at Samarlakota, Jaggampeta, Ravulapalem, Satyawada and Nachugunta.

Apart from this, the company has decided to set up a 50,000-litre capacity milk chilling centre each at Kotanumduru (Visakhapatnam district) and Bobbili (Vizianagaram district).

"The proposed additional infrastructure will be ready by December 2007, and we are aiming to reach the 2-lakh litre a day procurement level by 2008," he said.

Heritage currently sells about 20,000 litres of milk a day in the Vizag market. Rao said the company was planning to increase this to 50,000 litres a day over the next two years.