Island Dairies to tap Maldives market

Invests Rs 50 m to upgrade technology:

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

A leading dairy products company in Sri Lanka Island Dairies (Pvt) Ltd will invest Rs 50 million to expand its business focusing on the export market shortly.

The company’s Managing Director Liyanage Karunaratne told Daily News Business that the company which is supported by latest technology from Netherlands and Denmark will export non fat and non sugar yoghurt to the Maldives initially and later expand to other neighbouring countries. He said over 3,000 farmer families in the Kegalle district make their living by supplying fresh milk to his factory and help improve their living standards over the years.

The company has a range of fifteen products which include flavoured and plain yoghurt, ice cream, curd and fresh milk distributed islandwide. Plans are under way to introduce a few other new products in the near future. Over 10,000 litres of milk is collected daily from the farmers at present.

The company has given cold storage facilities to farmers in need. Through the strong relationship with the farmers over 25 years Karunaratne hoped to increase this quantity of milk by motivating people in the area to engage in this industry as Sri Lanka has high potential for growth in this sector.

Karunaratne’s vision is to be the best milk food products supplier in the country by 2015 and help the government to save foreign exchange spent on importing milk powder.

He hoped to create dairy production villages and create employment to people while giving a better price to farmers and supply and motivate Sri Lankan people to consume more and more healthy milk products.

The company also provides animal feed, medicine and training for farmers free or at concessionary rates. Another step taken by the company to develop the industry is facilitating the Advanced Level students in Kegalle district schools taking Dairy Farm Management as a subject to obtain practical knowledge and training in his factory. He said that this will help those students to find employment easily in the future as there is a dearth of skilled people for the industry. He said the fully fledged new factory worth of Rs 225 million situated in Kegalle will be opened on Sunday coinciding with the 27 anniversary of the company.