Creamline Dairy Products Ltd. (CDPL), a company in which Godrej Agrovet Ltd. holds 52% stake, plans to invest ₹400 crore in three greenfield milk processing plants in different States over the next three years, a top official said.
The company, which owns the Jersey brand of milk products, also intends to acquire a few facilities.
The objectives behind the proposed expansion include growing the share of value-added milk products, according to K.Bhasker Reddy, founder and managing director, Creamline.
In three years, the milk processing processing capacity of the company would increase from 12 lakh litres a day to 15 lakh litres, he said.
He was speaking to the media on Wednesday at the unveiling of ‘Jersey Thickshakes’ — milkshake in three flavours at a function in which the firm CEO Raj Kanwar and Godrej Agrovet managing director Balram Singh Yadav participated. The Thickshakes are manufactured at CDPL's plant near Hyderabad.
New facilities
On new facilities, he said CDPL, which had nine plants, had recently acquired a processing plant in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu and was setting up another in Vishakhapatnam. Three new plants would be set up in Tamil Nadu, north Karnataka and Maharashtra. Besides internal resources, the company plans to raise funds required for expansion through debt and if needed, by going for an IPO. Godrej Agrovet had spent about ₹160 crore when it increased the stake in CDPL from 26 to 52% in December 2015, according to its Balram Singh Yadav.
To a query, he said Godrej Agrovet was in the race to acquire Ruchi Soya Industries, which was facing insolvency proceedings. The company had made a bid through NCLT.
