January 24, 2013
Indian milk federation to launch US$30 million robotic dairy facility
A robotic dairy facility worth INR1.6 billion (US$29.7 million) is set to open in Virar, Maharashtra, India by the Indian Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), the marketer of the Amul brand of milk and dairy products.
The Virar facility, which will be the sixth facility for Amul in India, is expected to open in February. The plant features robots, which will perform operations such as conveying of crates, packed pouches from high-speed packing machines and filling of pouches in crates. The robots will be controlled through a centralised computer monitoring system.
In addition, the high-speed packing machines have been integrated with online check weighers and robotic operations in order to ensure that the products are free from human contact.
The facility will have capacity to process 800,000 litres per day milk, 150,000 litres of buttermilk and 5,000 litres of curd. The co-operative plans to source up to 200,000 litres of milk locally by setting up cooperative services across the Virar region, in order to support milk supply to the facility.
Amul Dairy managing director Rahul Kumar was quoted as saying that this will be the first dairy plant with a fully automatic traffic management system using robots for milk packing operations.
GCMMF produces and markets food products in India providing butter, cheese, ethnic sweets, fat milk, toned milk, fresh cream, ghee, infant milk, milk powders, sweetened condensed milk, and curd products.
