Milk Mantra to invest Rs 15 cr for raising capacity

"Our aim is to increase milk production capacity of our dairy plant near Gop in Puri district to two lakh litres per day in next 3-4 years from 20,000 litres now," Managing Director and CEO of Milk Mantra, Srikumar Misra said here.

In order to raise the capacity of the processing plant, substantial investment is required and plans are afoot to pump in around Rs 15 crore during the current financial year itself, he said.

Describing Milk Mantra as India's first VC (venture capital) funded agri-food startup and the first Medium Scale Enterprise in Puri district, Misra said fresh funds would be used to expand product portfolio, induct state-of-the-art technology and machinery and expand collection base.

Around 6,000 milk farmers of 250 villages in Puri and Cuttack districts are now linked to the plant, the only fully integrated Tetrapak milk processing line in Eastern India which was commissioned in October 2011 at a cost of about Rs 20 crore, he said.

A network is likely to be built soon in Jagatsinghpur district also, he added.

Spread over four acres of land, Milk Mantra's plant at present produces milk and 'paneer' and plans to introduce yogurt/curd by next summer, Misra said adding its fresh 'paneer' is also sold in Kolkata market.

Stating that Milk Mantra has tied up with major retail chains, company's Executive Director Rashima Mishra said its milk and fresh paneer (cottage cheese), under the label 'Milky Moo' is available in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Angul, Talcher, Khurda and several other places of Odisha.

The company has been focusing on Ethical milk sourcing (EMS) programme and product format innovation, she said adding Milk Mantra is the first private sector packaged milk provider in Odisha to offer direct benefit to the farmers through EMS by weeding out middle men.

Milk Mantra has partnered with several leading global dairy companies like Tetrapak and DeLaval from Sweden and Multivac from Germany and has brought state of the art machines and technology to its plant at Gop, he said.

With the launch of its pure high-quality products, Milk Mantra hopes to make a significant contribution to the organised dairy sector in Odisha.

The company aims to offer innovative milk products with a focus on the needs of the urban consumer.