Mother Dairy to ramp up capacity at Howrah facility to 100 tonnes-a-day.

New Delhi-based Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Pvt. Ltd. is looking to ramp up its fermented and fresh dairy products facility in the State to approximately 100 tonnes-a-day over the next one year.

Mother Dairy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Apart from milk and dairy products being marketed under the 'Mother Dairy' brand, the company operates in two other verticals - fruits, vegetables and processed foods under the 'Safal' brand and edible oil under the 'Dhara' brand.

According to Subhasis Basu, Business Head, Dairy Products Division, Mother Dairy, the existing manufacturing facility located in Uluberia, Howrah, has a capacity of 12 tonnes per day.

Immediate plans include shoring up capacity to 18 tonnes daily. He, however, did not share investment details.

Fermented and fresh dairy products include curd and curd-based offerings such as mishti doi, dahi, aam doi (mango-flavoured curd) and lassi.

'Considering the increased demand for our products, we will ramp up our production facility to 18 tonnes, a day. The increase should happen within this month. Over the next one year we look to increase the capacity to 100 tonnes-a-day,' Basu told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of its 'Lassi'.

Asked if the new additions would be through company-owned facilities or through third-party manufacturing, he said all possible options were being explored.

Plans are afoot to extend offerings to other districts of Bengal and into new cities such as Ranchi, Jamsedhpur and Bhubaneswar.

HBL