July 19, 2012

Nestle supports improvement in livelihood of Sri Lanka milk farmers

Nestle Lanka maintains its strong commitment to sustainable dairy development and the improvement in livelihood for Sri Lanka's dairy farmers.

Nestle has increased its investments in the first half of 2012 and registered a 35 % increase in fresh milk collection during the first six months of 2012, compared to 2011

The pay-out to local farmers has also increased by over 58 % or LKR1.2 billion (US$9.02 million) during the same period. In 2011, Nestle invested LKR3.6 billion (US$27 million) for direct fresh milk purchase from local farmers as well.

In 2011, Nestle announced a LKR10 billion (US$75.2 million) investment in Sri Lanka, of which LKR3.2 billion (US$24.1 million) has already been commissioned over the last 18 months. Furthermore, LKR1.9 billion (US$14.3 million) has been invested in the local manufacturing of milk based products.

With the presence in Sri Lanka for over a century, Nestle has always been on the forefront for developing sustainable businesses and sustainable communities through its "Creating Shared Value" initiative which include main segments such as nutrition, water and road development activities in Sri Lanka.

"The milk processing plant in Kurunegala is presently running at optimal capacity due to our increased intake of local fresh milk and will continue to purchase milk as much as we can and continue to operate at maximum capacity for fresh milk processing.

According to Nestle Lanka managing director Alois Hofbauer, all the value added products of Nestle produced at the Kurunegala factory use local fresh milk as the products base and Hofbauer emphasised that the company never stopped or slowed down the milk collecting process in Sri Lanka for any reason as mentioned in recent media reports.

Nestle has closely worked with the Sri Lanka dairy sector over the last 30 years and is engaged in assisting over 15,000 local dairy farmers to increase their quantity and quality of their yield.

Today, Nestle is the largest private sector collector of fresh milk with 1,200 milk collection centres and over 100 milk chilling centres across the country, including the North and East.