Heritage Foods India Limited is aiming to increase milk procurement from Andhra Pradesh by 15 per cent every year over the next three-four years. The company currently procures 8 lakh litres of milk per day from three states "" Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. | |
| "Of the total milk procured from these three states, about 60 per cent comes from Andhra. We are now upgrading our infrastructure facilities across the state where there is a potential to boost our milk procurement," NV Venkata Rao, vice-president (procurement, inputs), Heritage Foods, told Business Standard. |
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| Heritage has about 57 milk chilling and milk packing stations and 20 bulk coolers. It has decided to add 15-20 bulk coolers every year across the state, particularly in the north coastal Andhra Pradesh. |
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| "At present, we procure between 22,000 litres and 30,000 litres of milk a day from the Vizag region. We are targeting to touch 1 lakh litres in 2008-09 and 2 lakh litres by 2009-10," he said. Accordingly, the company is adding 20 more bulk coolers in this region during this fiscal. Each cooler would cost about Rs 14 lakh. |
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| The company also has plans for Maharashtra. Two months ago, Heritage Foods purchased a dairy in Sangavi district, and is now procuring about 50,000 litres of cow milk a day from the surrounding areas. After processing, the milk is being marketed in Mumbai, Pune and Baramati areas. |
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| "In Maharashtra, we are directly procuring milk from farmers and are undertaking awareness and educational programmes for milk producers on collection of clean milk. We aim to procure 2 lakh litres of milk a day from Maharashtra over the next two years," he stated. |
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| With these initiatives, the company expects its milk procurement to cross 10 lakh litres per day during the next fiscal. |
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