January 26, 2022

 

Arla works with Bangladeshi dairy company to showcase sustainable dairy production

 

 

Pran Dairy Limited, Bangladesh's leading dairy company, and Arla Foods Bangladesh Limited, the local subsidiary of European dairy cooperative Arla Foods, has initiated a collaboration with an objective to showcase a market-driven and sustainable dairy production to increase milk productivity and quality.

 

Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, chief executive officer of Pran-RFL Group, and Peter Hallberg, managing director of Arla Foods Bangladesh Limited, signed a letter of intent recently at the Arla Foods Bangladesh headquarters to mark the commencement of the collaboration.

 

The event was attended by Eleash Mridha, managing director of Pran Group, Md Muniruzzaman, executive director of Pran Dairy, Galib Bin Mohammad, head of marketing, Sumaita Khan, manager (CSR) of Alternative Channel Management, and Toni Lehtonen, commercial project manager of Arla Foods.

 

In the primary phase of the collaboration, both organisations will conduct farm assessments to build capacity and identify opportunities for more sustainable dairy farming solutions.

 

Additionally, apart from strengthening the local dairy value chain, there will be a further collaboration with Bangladesh Agricultural University to collect data systematically and scientifically to analyse the social, environmental and economic impact of the collaboration.

 

Chowdhury said: "We have a huge opportunity doing well in the dairy sector of Bangladesh. Pran Dairy is working closely with the contractual dairy farmers at remote places and giving various supports and training for their skill development.

 

"But we need to give more emphasis on sustainable dairy production to increase milk productivity and quality, alongside the economic output of the local dairy value chain in Bangladesh. I hope the initiative will bring a good contribution to our dairy sector."

 

Stressing on the importance of the project, Hallberg said: "In any country, we operate in the world, we act responsibly towards its societies. We feel that we can contribute significantly to the overall development of the dairy sector, supporting the goals of the country.

 

"As the fourth largest dairy cooperative in the world, with over 100 years of dairy experience, we are in a unique position to deliver commercial success for the dairy farmers in Bangladesh in and development of the sector and to do so sustainability. It's at the heart of everything we do and core to our new corporate strategy, Future26. We look forward to collaborating with our partners on this venture and to adding a valuable contribution with our extensive knowledge and experience of sustainable dairy farming, food safety and technology."

 

Pran Dairy Limited is working with dairy farmers closely in parts of Bangladesh and started milk collection in 2001 to meet the growing demand for milk.

 

It has developed the Dairy Hub concept in the country. The aim of setting up a dairy hub is to collect milk from dairy farmers directly so that they get a fair price and make Bangladesh self-sufficient in dairy.

 

Pran has seven dairy hubs and more than 100 milk collection and chilling centres under the hub. Farmers get related services through the centres under the Dairy hub.

 

Pran Dairy has 12,000 contract farmers.

 

- Dhaka Tribune