If you do not have a refrigerator and want to store milk for three months, Gujarat now offers a solution: you can buy specially packaged milk by shelling out an extra Rs 4 per litre.
What is more, you can buy milk for three months at one go and use it safely!
The Mehsana District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd, popularly known as the Doodhsagar Dairy, will introduce this packaged milk on August 15.
Branded as 'Sagar Moti', the milk will be packaged in five-layered pouches that will keep the milk fresh for three months even if it is stored at room temperature.
“For this, we have installed new packaging machinery imported from Europe at a cost of Rs 10 crore. Since it would be packaged after subjecting milk to ultra-high temperature (UHT) conditions, it would be free of any bacterial activity until opened,” Mr Vipul Choudhary, Chairman, told Business Line on Monday.
Slowly the dairy will shift all its milk packaging to the new technology, he said. But, for now, both normal and specially-packaged pouches will be available.
The price of the UHT milk will be higher by about Rs 4 per litre to cover the cost of the pouch. But it will be safer and cheaper to transport, deliver and store it as refrigeration costs will be eliminated, he said.
Other dairies are also likely to follow suit, Mr Choudhary said, adding some of them have already put in orders for importing machinery.
The Doodhsagar Dairy currently procures an average 19 lakh litres of milk each day.
It markets its product under the common brand name of ‘Amul’ outside Gujarat. The new milk packaging will soon be introduced in Delhi, NCR and Manesar in Haryana where Doodhsagar sells about 10 lakh litres of milk and its products daily.
Besides, its new plant at Jharuveda in Haryana, set up at a cost of Rs 300 crore, will also start production of 15 lakh litres of milk products in December 2012.