Visakha Coop bags Rs 3cr order from Mother Dairy

Visakha Cooperative Dairy (VCD) has bagged a Rs 3-crore order from Mother Dairy for supply of butter. Incidentally, butter production at Visakha Dairy has increased to 10 tonnes this year from 8 tonnes during the last fiscal due to increase in milk procurement.

"Apart from producing huge quantities, the quality of butter in our dairy is very good. Owing to this reason, Mother Dairy has decided to take butter from us in spite of the high transportation costs to move it from Vizag to Delhi," N V Venkata Rao, managing director of Visakha Dairy, told Business Standard.

Initially, Mother Dairy placed an order for 300 tonnes of butter, worth about Rs 3 crore. "We have already started supplying butter to Mother Dairy for the last several days. By the end of December, we will complete the supply of 300 tonnes of butter," he said. Visakha Dairy also supplies large quantities of butter to Kolkata and Hyderabad markets.

Visakha Dairy's milk procurement and sales registered a growth of 15 per cent and 14 per cent respectively during the first half of the current fiscal as compared to last year.

"Last fiscal, our daily average milk procurement was 3.2 lakh litres and daily sales 2.9 lakh litres. For the current year, milk procurement and sales are 4 lakh litres and 3.25 litres respectively," Rao said.

The diary sells 3.20 lakh litres in consumer packs, 40,000 litres in tetrapacks, and supplies 50,000 litres to Amul to cater to the needs of Kolkata. Nagapur-based Balaji Dairy buys on an average 15,000 litres per day from Visakha Dairy.

Because of the shortage of cattle feed due to poor rainfall this season, the milk procurement has remained stagnant at 4.4 lakh litres as against the expected 5 lakh litres this year, Venkata Rao said.

Notwithstanding the milk procurement below the expected level, Visakha Dairy's income increased by Rs 20 crore during the first half of the current fiscal as compared to the corresponding period last year.

The revenue for the first half of the current fiscal touched Rs134 crore as compared to Rs 114.8 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal. The dairy is expecting a total turnover of Rs 260 crore as compared to Rs 234 crore in 2004-05.