Sudha is a household name in Bihar. It conjures up images of milk and milk products in plenty. Cooperative Milk Producers Federation of Bihar (comfed) that owns it and sells its products under the brand Sudha is set to expand and popularize its business.

The company is reported to have hired the services of several advertising agencies to launch a promotional blitz to promote its brand beyond Bihar.

Comfed markets a range of milk products under the brand Sudha. The most popular products include gulab jamun, rasogulla, yoghurt [plain, sweet] paneer, lassi, ice cream and peda. Comfed does not sell them only in Bihar but also in West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and North East.

Comfed plans to augment its collection of milk from a million litres to 5 million litres in the years ahead. The Bihar dairy major has also its eye on the country’s capital Delhi and would soon pitch a tent there for doing business.

50 years ago the famous drawing of a girl bending herself with her one eye fixed on the pack of Amul butter began catching India’s imagination. The image became an inevitable part of the daily Indian life.

The butter girl seen everywhere in the country has come to symbolize India’s dairy abundance.

The image has had a funny and glittering career especially inspiring tiny tots and not so grown up children into biting their favourite Amul butter.

This little cute painting girl surfaced to rival Polson’s butter girl.

A coffee book is being launched as a part of this girl’s 50th birthday celebration.

In an ambitious plan Sahara India announced to emerge number one player in dairy production with largest number of cattle-heads, biggest amount of land bank and production of dairy products on unprecedented scale unbeatable by any one.

The company will start selling milk and milk products from 2013 and could be a serious challenger for Anand based Amul.

Sahara chief Subrato Rai says his company would be doing the largest milk business in the country. The company will start selling milk and milk products from 2013.

Sahara India would supply quality milk at a reasonable price. The company intends acquiring land in UP and MP soon.

We plan to produce 50 lakh tonnes of milk — the largest in the country,” Managing Worker and Chairman Sahara India Pariwar told reporters in Lucknow.

He said pure milk would be made available to the public from his dairy and for this 9,000 acres would be acquired near Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh besides land in Madhya Pradesh.

There would be no spike in the price of milk in Punjab.  Milkfed made an announcement to this effect.

Milkfed claims as it has enough stock of skimmed milk powder for conversion into milk it is confident of meeting the needs in the months down the line.

The procurement of milk has been a great success this season.  Sources say there would be no shortage of milk and milk products in the state.

There are several thousands of milk cooperative societies and milk farms in Punjab and Milkfed is the beneficiary of this vast network.

Readers would recall that milk prices were hiked by the dairy giant Amul followed by Mother Dairy and others in quick succession in the recent times.

Aiming at sky GCMMF the giant dairy cooperative and owner of Amul brand has pledged to take its conglomerate to Rs 30,000 crore by 2020.

In a press conference in Hyderabad R S Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF said that nine new plants  will be set up in the next four years at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. He was overseeing the launch of Amul Pro, a protein-rich beverage in Andhra Pradesh market.

R S Sodhi said the dairy products maker has plans to touch Rs 30,000 crore turnover by 2020. “In the next four years, we are investing around Rs 3,000 crore in setting up nine new plants and the capacity of the existing 40 plants will be increased,”

“We have 14.5 million liters per day capacity and it will reach to 18 million liters per day after the expansion,” he added. Sodhi said they increased the milk procuring price by almost 50% in the last three years to farmers in order to keep the activity lucrative. He said current generation of farmers is not finding milk business as viable and the situation may lead to depend on imports like other Asian countries.

“So we thought if we do not take up this seriously India will become like other Asian countries such as Pakistan which depend on import of milk. We took a lead and increased price to farmer,” he explained. According to Sodhi, the GCMMF currently pays including bonus Rs 34.40 for buffalo milk and Rs 22.50 for cow milk.

Replying to a query on exports to European Union, Sodhi said, and conditions such as using machines for milking is deterrent for exports. “In India you cannot get milk with milking machine… it is impossible,” he said. He said they expect the Rs 30,000 crore-target by 2020 will be achieved two year earlier.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has charted out its expansion plans for the next five years. It proposes to invest Rs 3,000 crore over the next five years to increase its daily milk processing capacity from 145 to 180 lakh litres.

The federation is in the process of setting up two milk processing plants in Delhi, and four plants in Saurashtra region of Gujarat, besides planning to set up a plant even in United States.

“Our goal is to increase the milk processing capacity from the existing 145 to 180 lakh litres per day over the next five years, for which we will invest around Rs 3,000 crore,” GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi said.

“We are setting up two new plants in Delhi having processing capacity of 30 and 10 lakh litres per day each, which are expected to be commissioned by this year end,” he said.

“A milk processing plant having 10 lakh litres per day capacity has come up in Mumbai, and is expected to be operational within next two or three months,” Sodhi said.

“The four processing plants proposed in Saurasthra region of Gujarat each having capacity of 2 lakh litres per day will go on stream within a year,” he said adding that eight lakh litres capacity addition will be in Saurashtra alone.

“The federation operates with a network of 52 milk processing plants in India, of which nine are operating on hired basis,” Sodhi said.

GCMMF, which clocked a turnover of Rs 11,660 crore in 2011-12, currently procures around 140 lakh litres of milk per day.

“The overall turnover of brand Amul is around Rs 16,000 crore, which includes sales of member dairies of the federation,” a GCMMF official said.

The federation has begun procuring milk from states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana among others, and paying same prices to the farmers there as given to their counterparts in Gujarat, he said.

-PTI

The jewel of cooperatives Amul has agreed to sponsor athletes participating in the 2012 London Olympic. Amul produces milk and cheese which are source of energy for the athletes and hence the sponsorship, declared GCMM Managing Director R S Sodhi  in a function at Delhi on Monday.

Amul signed a MoU with the Indian Olympic Association.The MoU was signed by Raja Randhir Singh, Secretary General, IOA and Member, International Olympic Committee and Mr. R S Sodhi, Managing Director, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Amul). Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Acting President, Indian Olympic Association was also present.

Announcing Amul’s support for the Indian contingent to the London 2012 Olympic Games, Mr. R S Sodhi said that , “Amul is committed to strengthening the Olympic movement in India and encourage young generation from all corners of the country to take up Olympic sports. I take great pleasure and pride in announcing our sponsorship of the Indian contingent to the London 2012 Olympic Games as ‘Olympic Partner’.”

India is the largest producer of milk in the world and Amul is not only India’s but Asia’s largest milk brand. Further, he said that this association and activities around it will help in engaging the youth so that they can enjoy a healthy life and strive to become swifter, higher and stronger in their endeavours.

Amul has recently associated with sports events like Cricket World Cup and Formula 1 to engage the youth. Mr Sodhi mentioned that the Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate.

Lauding Amul’s support to the Indian Olympic contingent, Prof VK Malhotra, Acting President, IOA said that the sponsorship funds will be used for the athletes.

Raja Randhir Singh, Secretary General, IOA said, “I would like to congratulate Amul for flagging off its Olympic initiative today.” Mr Anil Khanna, Chairman, Finance Commission, IOC and also the Chairman of the Marketing Committee for London 2012 games too welcomed Amul’s association with the Indian contingent.

– Business Wire India

Punjab cooperative milk producers’ federation  has had a bumper  milk collection this season  from thousands of  milk cooperative societies and  dairy farms  dotting  the state.

Despite a glut of milk on the market Milkfed would not lower retail rates , it  would  increase procurement  price for farmers, sources say.

According to the knowledgeable sources, Milkfed  is being extra-careful not to  hurt the interests of  farmers   and therefore  an  increase  in procurement price is under their active  consideration.

During the  winter season this year  milk  procurement counting  more than a million and a half littres a day  has surpassed the records of the previous years.

According to the dairy experts , the cold months abounding in   green fodder   are generally  the  most favourable period for milk production.

Milkfed is also  planning  to  have the additional supply in storage so that they could use it later  in the  lean months. This, they reckon, could  enable them to be less dependent  on National Dairy Development Board and other organisations  for getting their supplies of skimmed milk powder and whole milk powder.

According to Karnataka Milk Federation Chief G Somasekhara Reddy, his organisation has introduced new low fat milk with a trade name -Nandini good life on to the market.

It would sell for 4 rupees in 100 ml in a rectangular plastic pack. Nandini Goodlife  would mainly be marketed  in  the southern  states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Priced at Rs 4 a pack, the product  is expected to be a hit especially with the low income consumers both in cities and the countryside.

Allowing foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail may spell serious problems for the dairy farmers in India. Organized retail by definition being monopolistic could make matters difficult for farmers and processors. Integration with global retail chain would expose them to the vagaries of the international market, said R S Sodhi Managing Director, Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation while talking to the indiancooperative.com on phone on Thursday after attending international conference on dairy in Ahmadabad.

R S Sodhi lauded the role of cooperatives in India. Drawing a comparison between the west and India he said- while farmers’ share in consumer dollar has gone down in the west, farmers in India have got about 70-80 percent of consumer rupee. He put it down to what he called the cooperative factor here in India , the cooperative farmers overwhelmingly control  the  trinity of production, processing and marketing, he  added.

According to Mr Sodhi, while  farmers in  the Euro-American  belt   are pathetically  dependent on  mncs  for marketing, the cooperatives     do it here  connecting farmers to  huge urban markets  and  making a safe future possible for them.

Reeling off figures  the MD told the indiancooperative.com correspondent  that   Amul has an annual turnover of 12 thousand crore,  collecting  14 million litres of milk  per   day and   maintaining  a supply chain linking  over 3 million farmers  from 15 districts  of  gujarat,  40 dairy  plants, 47 stock points, 5 thousand distributors , 7 million retail stores spread across India and parts of  the world.