Banas Dairy to set up milk processing plant

Banaskantha District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd, or the Banas Dairy, a member of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), is all set to increase its milk processing capacity by setting up another milk processing plant near its existing plant.

While the investment is not known, the capacity of the new processing plant will be 1 million litres per day.

The move comes in the wake of higher milk supply of over 2 million litre a day coming from as many as 1,381 milk co-operatives. The dairy's daily milk processing capacity currently is over 1 million litre per day.

Banas Dairy is being forced to send excess milk to other GCMMF member dairies due to insufficient processing capacity and, therefore, it has decided to set up a new plant, to be known as 'Banas 3'.

"It will be another 1 million litre plant and is expected to come up by 2009. Construction work would commence within the next 4-6 months," said SR Chaudhry, managing director, Banas Dairy.

Senior officials of the dairy said the union's turnover for the current fiscal would cross Rs 1,000 crore, up from Rs 933 crore in the last financial year.

The dairy manufactures products under Amul and Banas brands. Its product range includes pasteurised milk, butter, ghee, milk powder, tea and coffee whitener, skimmed milk powder, ice-cream and 'pedas'. The products are marketed through GCMMF.