New Delhi, March 22,2014 – Sanjay Dhingra, Chairman and Managing Director, said the company intended to expand its milk procurement network in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab and also to increase its chilling centres to 90 from the existing 22.
It has six milk processing facilities with a total capacity of 30 lakh litres a day.
Kwality collects about 28 lakh litres a day, of which about five lakh litres is directly sourced from farmers and the rest through third party contractors and vendors.
“We plan to increase the share of milk procured directly from farmers to about 50 per cent of the total milk sourced in about two to three years,” Dhingra told reporters. Kwality is in the process of installing equipment to manufacture products such as cottage cheese, flavoured milk and yogurt at three of its processing plants. Besides pouched milk, the company currently markets curd, ghee and skimmed milk powder (SMP).
“We propose to invest between Rs. 250 crore and Rs. 300 crore in expanding our processing capability and procurement network,” said Sidhant Gupta, Executive Director.
The company is finalising its investments plans and will fund the expansion partially through debt and internal accruals.
Kwality, which entered the pouched milk market in the National Capital Region through its brand Dairy Best, has managed to increase its sales to about 3.5 lakh litres a day over the past two years.
The company, which clocked a turnover of Rs. 3,700 crore last fiscal, has seen its skimmed milk powder exports almost double to around 8,000 tonnes in the current year.
