CIC Agri Business to embark on liquid milk processing

Anjana Samarasinghe

CIC Agri Business will embark on a liquid milk processing project investing over Rs 300 million in the near future.

Director CIC Agri Business, Waruna Madawanaarachchi told Daily News Business that they need a 1,500-acre land for the project and the company is negotiating with the Government to find suitable land. "We are looking for a land closer to Eastern Province.

This will be a mega project and we expect to import milch cows and set up milk processing centres," he said.

Apart from the milk produced by the company plans have also been made to collect milk from the outside farmers.

Initially 500 milk farmers will benefit from the project. The company expects to collect 2,000 litres per day from these farmers and produced 3,000 litres in house. Total daily milk production will be 5,000 litres, he said.

The Company will provide technology, know-how, animals and animal feed for these farmers.

The plant will produce liquid milk, flavoured milk, yogurt and cheese as end products, he said. Meanwhile Operations Manager of CIC Seeds (Pvt) Ltd., Chandana Jayaratne said: "Due to high prices of milk powder in the local market today many consumers have switched to local products such as fresh milk and curd. We have noticed significant growth in demand for curd specially in Colombo and Kandy areas.

Today many consumers move towards traditional foods and people are much more health conscious. Demand for traditional foods such as curd have been increased and consuming curd is much more easy than using fresh milk, he said.

"The demand is mainly generated through the supermarket chains and we are unable to meet this huge demand. At present we provide 500 litres of curd per day and are now planning to increase the production to 2,000 litres per day. We are also collecting 250 litres through outside farmers," he said.

"Our farm has 170 buffaloes and the company is planning to increase the number to 400 to cater to the ever-increasing demand. The company is also planning to grow grass in the available lands in the farm for feeding buffaloes after the expansion programme", Jayaratne said.