December 30, 2020

Malaysia's FGV ventures into milk production

Malaysia's FGV Holdings Bhd through its subsidiary FGV Dairy Farm Sdn Bhd is venturing into the fresh milk processing and the dairy farming business as it targets to produce 30,000 litres of fresh milk a day in the first half 2021, theSundaily reported.

The plan follows the implementation of a fully-integrated dairy farm project in Linggi, Negri Sembilan.

FGV Dairy Farm recently received an additional 130 crossbred dairy heifers from Australia, which are a hybrid of Jersey and Friesian dairy cattle breeds, and now the farm has an overall herd size of 258 head. This additional shipment is said to fulfill the higher volume of fresh milk production as well as the growth in local demand, particular from the hotel, restaurant and cafe market segments.

FGV group CEO Datuk Haris Fadzilah Hassan says since the start of the dairy farm project in March 2020, the premium house brand Bright Cow has been processing more than 500,000 litres of fresh milk for local consumption, contributed by the fresh milk produced by FGV's Linggi dairy farm and supplied by external dairy farms.

"Our fresh milk production in Linggi, will see the opening of a brand new fresh milk factory with a processing capacity of 30,000 litres per day. We have also installed an automated milking parlour and a cloud-based daily milk recording system to ensure the quality of our dairy products and the productivity of our dairy farm. These efforts are scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2021," says Haris Fadzilah.

New Bright Cow product formulations, flavours and packaging are currently undergoing product and stability tests prior to launch, which is targeted to take place in April 2021. Bright Cow dairy products are now available online.

Under the National Dairy Industry Development Programme, the government aims to ensure self-sufficiency in domestic fresh milk production by 2025. FGV's initiatives are also said to be in line with the government's vision for shared prosperity through contract farming opportunities for cattle farmers.

Earlier in July, FGV also announced that it was expanding its domestic feed business through distributorships: https://www.efeedlink.com/contents/07-27-2020/6866bf4a-cdfb-41d7-b59e-9cce1a7bbdf0-a181.html