Aavin’s oldest dairy at Madhavaram will soon be upgraded to handle an additional 6.5 lakh litres daily. At present, it processes 3.5 lakh litres of milk a day. The proposal is likely to cost ₹100 crore, for which a loan is to be availed under the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund.
C. Kamaraj, managing director, Aavin, said that the dairy would get a fully automatic milk processing unit, modern packaging and enhanced refrigeration systems.
“We hope to commence the work by the end of this financial year. The works have been tuned to be completed within 18 months. The existing infrastructure in the dairy too will be improved. When it was started in the 1960s, it had machinery from Europe,” he said.
Procurement up
The Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, whose brand is Aavin, aims to process a total of 50 lakh litres of milk daily in two years time. At present, it procures 36 lakh litres of milk a day and has a processing capacity of 41 lakh litres daily. This year’s average milk procurement of 33.04 lakh litres a day is 3.5 lakh litres more than last year’s average of 29.46 lakh litres daily. Providing additional processing capacity to this urban dairy would help the federation to increase supplies to Chennai city.
Aavin supplies over 12.40 lakh litres of milk daily from Ambattur, Sholinganallur and Kakkalur dairies to the city and its surroundings.
“We have expanded our marketing base and have parlours at all district headquarters in the State. Recently, we added more varieties in flavoured milk and kulfi too. Aavin has recently opened branches in Kolkata and Hyderabad and will move to other State capitals too. In a couple of weeks, one outlet will be opened in Karolbagh in New Delhi,” Mr. Kamaraj said.
