Mother Dairy to invest Rs 600 crore in new fruits, vegetable processing plants

Mother Dairy plans to invest about Rs 600 crore to establish two new fruit and vegetable processing plants in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, a top company official said. The dairy major, which has a significant presence in Delhi-NCR milk market, will spend more than Rs 400 crore on a plant at Itola near Baroda, Gujarat, with construction expected to be completed within two years, Mother Dairy Managing Director Manish Bandlish told PTI.

“The board has already approved. The process for establishing the Itola plant will begin and will be completed in the next two years,” he said.

The second plant will come up in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh with an investment of Rs 150-200 crore, Bandlish added.

“We are yet to get the land from the government. Then we will start working on investment. DPR is yet to be made,” he said.

Currently, Mother Dairy’s Safal brand has three fruits and vegetable processing plants at Ranchi (Jharkhand), Bengaluru (Karnataka), and Mangolpuri (Delhi), processing two lakh tonne of produce annually.

Bandlish also mentioned that construction of a new Nagpur plant with an investment of over Rs 500 crore for processing milk and dairy products is underway, with operations expected to begin by 2026. On the recently launched idli-dosa batter for Delhi-NCR market, he said, “It has been very well received by the consumers. We have already done one tonne per day.” Currently available only at Safal booths, the company will decide in April whether to proceed with full rollout, which would require an investment of Rs 5-10 crore, he added.

Mother Dairy, a subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board, expects a turnover of close to Rs 17,500 crore in the 2024-25 fiscal year, up 15-16 per cent from Rs 15,000 crore in the previous year.