India’s largest private dairy player, Hatsun Agro, has tied up with Germany-based GEA to set up a 6.5 lakh litre capacity plant at Dharapuram in Tamil Nadu at an investment of Rs 120 crore.
GEA is a leading supplier of equipments to dairy and food processing industry and has helped companies like Amul to set up their largest processing plants in India. It is currently working with the Karnataka Milk federation to set up a milk powder plant.
The plant is designed to handle 6.5 lakh liters of milk per day to produce 3 lakh litres per day market milk in pouches and 1.5 liters per day of curd. It is expected to be the fourth largest plant and their sixteenth manufacturing unit. The plant is expected to be fully operational by early 2018.
RG Chandramogun, managing director, Hatsun Agro, said the latest project involves an investment of Rs 120 crore. Hatsun had earlier announced an investment of Rs 850 crore till 2018 in boosting capacities and other business segments.
Abhay Chaudhari, Country managing director, GEA India Cluster stated that the plant is fully automated for processing and packaging of liquid milk and curd. MIS reports can be generated to capture data regarding process parameters, production and packaging making it highly responsive and efficient.