Nandini, the cooperative milk brand of Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), is planning a major foray in Maharashtra by bringing in several value added products.
Mrutyunjaya Kulkarni, director (marketing) on Thursday said the Rs 2,000 crore infrastructure development programme undertaken by the Federation is nearing completion and therefore the plan to expand marketing presence in Maharashtra.
The programme includes a 35 tonne cheese plant near Bengaluru, a 40 tonne milk powder and pet bottle plant for flavoured milk in Hasan district, 5 mega dairies in Mysore, Kolar, Tumkur, Mandya and Hasan.
On an average, the Federation reports collection of 76 lakh litres of milk per day from 24 lakh farmers in the state.
Nandini has reported sales of 34.75 lakh litres of sale of liquid milk per day for the current financial year. The Federation also makes more than 65 value added products like ghee, milk sweets, flavoured milk, among others. Along with the state government, KMF participates in the Ksheerabhagya scheme wherein 55,000 students in government-run schools and anganwadi are given 150 litres of milk five days a week free of cost.
As part of their expansion plan, Nandini officially launched the sales of their pouched milk in Pune on Thursday. “We are already selling 11,000 litres of milk per day in the city and within the next month, hope to cross 25,000 litres per day mark,” he said. The milk to Pune will be supplied by the Belgaum milk union to save on the transport cost. Already, Nandini has registered sales of around 85,000 litres of milk per day in Mumbai. Other urban centres like Nagpur, Nashik, among others, are also on the radar. The intention is to serve markets on the border of the state, he said.
In addition to liquid milk, the Federation plans to expand the footprints of their product portfolio. Two major plants — the 35 tonne per day capacity cheese plant run by the Bengaluru union and the 100 tonne per day milk powder producing plant run by the Hassan Union — are nearing completion.