A number of advanced dairy machineries are making its way into the domestic dairy industry to improve handling of milk as well as uplift quality of milk and milk products produced in India  India, although the largest milk producer in the world, cannot boast of being a producer of superior quality milk and dairy products. Till date, none of the Indian companies have found a berth in the list of top 20 diary companies of the world. An introspection regarding the sorry state of the industry revealed that the primary reason behind Indian dairy industry not doing well in the international market was due to sub-standard quality of milk produced in the country.
According to industry insiders, factors such as lack of proper infrastructure, unhygienic sanitary conditions and lack of awareness, among others have contributed to the existing condition of the dairy industry. The traditional methods followed for transportation of milk in villages and other remote areas have only worsened the situation.
“Being a perishable commodity, milk needs special care to ensure that the quality of the commodity is not compromised and this can be done by maintaining hygienic conditions, ensuring proper storage facilities, preventing mishandling and rampant adulteration. Moreover, dearth of milking machines in the country needs to be addressed and efforts should be made to encourage dairy farmers to use such machines,” said Dulal Chandra Sen, zonal executive committee member, Indian Dairy Association (East zone) in an interview with a FoodProcessing360 correspondent.
Importance on dairy equipment
In a bid to address the issue, the dairy industry is now stressing on the use of a variety of advanced dairy equipment, which will help prevent mishandling of milk and thereby ensure production of high quality milk and milk products.
The experts, until now, had attached placid importance to dairy equipment such as milk pasteurisers, bulk milk coolers, milk vending machines, storage tanks, liquid milk packaging systems, roads tankers and the likes. However, the current state of the industry has compelled them to switch attention to packaging equipment as well.
The latest market trends show that India in the recent times has progressed significantly in manufacturing dairy equipment. Even though India imports some of these machineries from the European countries, most of it is now being manufactured in the country.
Talking on this score, Satish Kulkarni, principal scientist and head, dairy technology division, southern regional station, National Dairy Research Institute, Bengaluru, said, “At present, we are highly self-sufficient in terms of manufacturing dairy equipment in the country. About 90-95% of the machineries used in the dairy factories are indigenous.”
Leading names in the industry
Depending on the need of the hour, indigenous companies that specialise in manufacturing dairy equipment are coming up with new innovations. Goma Engineering, DeLaval (India) Limited, Edoodh Solution, Alfa Laval (India) Limited, GEA Westfalia Separator Tetra Pak, Gea Ecoflex are some of the names, which are perpetually striving to provide a facelift to the Indian dairy industry.
However, these companies are facing stiff competition from their Chinese counterparts that have surfaced among the frontrunners in dairy equipment manufacturing, although raw materials used by China have been proved to be of inferior quality as compared to that used in India.
At present, India produces 105 million tonnes (mt) of milk. By 2020, the country expects to take the production figure to 180 mt.
Shalmoli Kundu |
