Visakha Dairy to switch to tetra packing

Visakha Dairy is planning to gradually switch to tetra packing from polythene it at present uses for packing milk.

Speaking with Business Standard, D Venkata Rao, managing director of Visakha Dairy, said though tetra packing would be costlier, the company had decided to use it in order to increase the milk sales.

According to him, polythene packing costs around 60 paise per litre, compared with the tetra packing which would cost about Rs 5.40 per litre.

The dairy sells a litre milk at Rs 19 in polythene. However, once it goes for tetra packing, the cost would be Rs 22 per litre.

"Visakha supplies 40,000 litres of milk a day in tetra packs, of which 25,000 litres is sold under the Amul brand and about 15,000 litres under the Visakha brand," he said, adding the main markets for the tetra packed milk were East, West Godavari districts and Hyderabd.

"Tetra packing is more hygienic. Besides, the shelf life of the milk will be more than three months, which will help us increase the sales," he said.

Currently, Visakha Dairy spends about Rs 5.4 per litre on tetra packing. The dairy is in negotiations with tetra pack suppliers for a reduction in material costs.

Despite a drop in milk procurement over the last two months because of various reasons including floods, Visakha Dairy expects Rs 275 crore turnover during this fiscal as against Rs 234 crore in the preceding year.

Normally, its milk collection is about 4 lakh litres, but over the last two months, the milk procurement has fallen to 3.2 lakh litres per day, he said.