GCMMF, which markets dairy products under the Amul brand, will invest Rs 600-800 crore this fiscal in setting up new milk processing plants and expanding the capacity of existing units, the company’s MD R S Sodhi said.
Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which posted 13 per cent increase in turnover at Rs 33,150 crore during 2018-19, is expecting 20 per cent increase in its turnover this fiscal year at around Rs 40,000 crore, he added.
“We will invest Rs 600-800 crore during this fiscal on capacity expansion. We invest similar amount every year,” Sodhi told PTI. The company is looking at setting up new plants in locations that are closer to the Delhi-NCR market, he added.
On turnover, Sodhi said, “In the last financial year, our revenue growth was because of higher volume and there was no price increase across our product portfolio. But, in this year we are expecting growth in both volume and value terms.”
Amul has recently increased its milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi NCR, Maharashtra and other states due to higher procurement cost. It had last revised milk prices two years back in March 2017. Recently, GCMMF had said that the provisional unduplicated group turnover of Amul Federation and its 18 member unions crossed Rs 45,000 crore in 2018-19, an increase of 13 per cent from the previous year.
The 18 member unions of Amul Federation, with a farmer-member strength of more than 36 lakh across 18,700 villages of Gujarat, are procuring, on an average, 230 lakh litre of milk per day. The member unions of Amul plan to enhance the milk processing capacity from the current level of 350 lakh litre per day to 380-400 lakh litre per day in the next two years.
Price hike hits milk procurement
GCMMF which sells the Amul brand has seen a sizeable dip in procurement for its processing units in Maharashtra.
In a news report published by ToI, RS Sodhi, managing director of GCMMF, said if the procurement in Gujarat has dipped by 5 per cent, it has gone down by 15 to 20 per cent in Maharashtra. This is much lower than last year’s lean season. Maharashtra has been affected by drought since over three years, which has ultimately hit the milk yield, he said.
“Green or even dry grass cannot be expected in drought due to which fodder rates have gone up by close to 20%. As it has
made upkeep of cattle difficult, this has also impacted milk yield,” said Sodhi.
Meanwhile, at Amul’s procurement centre at Umarkhed in Yavatmal district, the supply has come down to 13,000 litres a day. This is 40 per cent less than last lean season.
“The shortage of fodder is also reflected in shortage of other products made of farm waste. Our unit uses briquettes out of waste like husks and other farm produce. However, due to the drought there is a shortage of farm waste too,” said Shyam Ladha, CEO of Amul’s unit at Nagpur