GCMMF plans ₹3,000 crore expansion

Ahmedabad: Asia’s largest dairy, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) that markets the Amul brand, has firmed plans to invest ₹ 3,000 crore over the next five years to expand its existing plants and set up nine manufacturing units across the country.

The expansion is a part of the federation’s aim to achieve a turnover of ₹ 30,000 crore by 2020, said managing director R.S. Sodhi.

Sodhi was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of Amul Pro, a whey protein malt beverage that could offer competition to chocolate-flavoured supplements such as Cadbury India Ltd’s Bournvita and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd’s Boost.

GCMMF aims to increase its milk-processing capacity from 14.5 million litres a day to 20 million litres, Sodhi said. For this, the federation, which involves nearly three million villagers in its operations, will set up two milk processing plants in Delhi, one each in Mumbai and Kolkata, and four in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. Currently, it has 52 such plants.

The federation is also working on plans to enter the US market by setting up a manufacturing unit there, Sodhi said.

The Centre imposed the ban in February 2011 as milk prices were rising fast. Last year, milk prices increased by over 15%.

GCMMF began procuring milk from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana as well last year.

“The scenario of milk demand-supply has changed from what it was in February last year. The milk supply with dairies is ahead of demand as farmers have started getting better remunerative price,” Sodhi said.

Over the previous three years, payments to farmers have increased by at least 50%. “GCMMF now pays them ₹ 33-34 per litre for buffalo milk and nearly ₹ 23 per litre for cow milk,” Sodhi said. This year, the federation is looking to increase the prices to farmers by 5-7%. “With rising inflation, we need to compensate the farmers as well. But the price hike this time would not be as steep as it was in the last two years,” Sodhi said.

The Gujarat government has made a provision in the budget for 2012-13 to set up a commercial diary for processing camel milk in Kutch district.

The state government has received a proposal from the Kutch District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd, or the Sarhad Dairy, which has joined hands with a local union of camel breeders called Kutch Unt Uchherak Maldhari Sangathan and Kutch-based non-governmental organization Sahjeevan to develop milk collection networks. “We have agreed to market the camel milk if processing and packaging of the camel milk is done from Kutch itself,” said Jayen Mehta, general manager, planning and marketing, GCMMF.

maulik.p@livemint.com