Come February 2014, the citizens of the United States including the south Asian community will savor the ‘Taste of India’ manufactured locally.
Milk giant Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMF), which owns and markets the Amul brand of milk products, will start manufacturing Ghee (butter oil), paneer (cottage cheese) and shrikhand from a manufacturing plant near New York from February.
“Initially, three products will be manufactured at the facility in the US from February. There are around 3 million Indian and many more Asian consumers, whom we will target in the initial phase,” said R S Sodhi, managing director, GCMMF.
The milk major has joined hands with a New Jercy-based non-resident Indian (NRI) to use his existing dairy plant near New York. The Kaira (Anand) District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (Amul Dairy) had already entered into an agreement with GCMMF and the US-based NRI for manufacturing milk products earlier this year.
“The plant is already there (in US). We will provide technology and infrastructure support for manufacturing of the milk products,” Sodhi told Business Line.
Maintaining its core value of cooperative structure, India’s largest milk cooperative will also source milk from milk cooperative dairies in the US. “The procurement price to be given to the farmers will be decided as per the prevailing norms in that market,” Sodhi said adding that GCMMF also plans to launch liquid milk in the due course of time.
According to data, GCMMF exports around Rs 100 crore worth of its dairy products to the overseas markets including US, Middle East, Europe and Asia annually. Around Rs 35 crore worth of milk products are exported to US alone.
Considering the large population of Indians and the south Asians and good prospects in the US region, the dairy major decided to join hands with local manufacturer and start producing milk products in the US itself. The project was under consideration since 2011.
GCMMF is eyeing its total turnover growing by 30 per cent over last year to touch Rs 18,000 crore by March 2014.