India’s Sarhad Dairy to invest $12.96m in expansion

India-based Sarhad Dairy is to invest around Rs70cr ($12.96m) to expand its storage and packaging capacity.

The project is to boost the dairy’s processing capacity three times from the current 50,000l per day and will be completed in the next two years.

Currently, the dairy collects close to 350,000l of milk from around 40 dairy cooperative societies (DCS) in Kutch area, with around 50,000l of milk being processed and packed by the dairy everyday and the rest is sent to Amul’s plant near Ahmedabad.

The Business Standard quoted Sarhad Dairy, Kutch chairman Valamji Humbal as saying: "At present, we are sending our milk collection for packaging to Ahmedabad at Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation’s (GCMMF) plant as we have very small packaging facility in Anjar taluka of Kutch.

"We are in process of setting up new packaging and storage unit with some new products manufacturing under Amul brand."

While the new plant will have an initial processing capacity of around 150,000l day, it will have the potential to be increased to 600,000l a day eventually.

The new packaging and storage capacity will also help in increasing the current count of 600 collection centres in the Kutch area. It will produce 15 other products along with milk powder, butter, ghee, butter milk, curd and ice cream under the Amul brand.

Business Standard also reported that the dairy was considering providing life insurance cover of INR100,000 to the 15,000 women associated with it.

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Image: The production capacity of the new plant will be around 150,000l per day. Photo: courtesy of tiverylucky / freedigitalphotos.net.