AmulFed Dairy (formerly Mother Dairy) in Gandhinagar, a unit of Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), tapped GEA Group, Germany, to build a new turnkey dairy plant for the production of 150 tons of skim milk powder per day and 120 tons of dairy whitener/baby food per day. The milk powder plant is scheduled to begin production in 2018.

When completed, the plant will be dubbed as the largest skim milk powder and dairy whitener plant in Asia. The company markets its milk and milk products under the Amul brand and its baby milk powder under the name of Amul Spray.

The plant will process around 90,000 liters of milk per hour to produce multiple value-added products, and features GEA’s advanced safety system and uses hygienic architectural design principles.

Other features to be included in the AmulFed plant are:

• The use of a mechanical vapor re-compression (MVR) system from GEA within the evaporation plant, which continuously recycles energy by recompressing the vapor within the evaporator.
• The use of a reverse osmosis polisher to treat the milk condensate from the evaporation plant and recycle the water for re-use within the plant. This significantly reduces water usage and approaches zero liquid discharge concept.
• The application of a GEA clarifying separator to remove the entire life cycle of bacteria from the milk, thereby ensuring a supply of bacteria-free healthy milk throughout the process cycle.
• The inclusion of GEA SANICIP bag filters in series with cyclones to collect powder fines, save product and reduce emissions to the atmosphere.
• The inclusion of a GEA sifter to provide a uniform distribution of the powder particles, and therefore, a more homogenous final product.
• Equipped with powder packing and a conveying system from GEA.
• Designed to operate in fully automated mode, including powder production, conveying, storage, packing, final packed product conveying and a complete management information system.

“We will provide AmulFed with a hygienically-superior plant that will deliver peak performance,” says Abhay Chaudhari, GEA country managing director, India Cluster. “The AmulFed milk powder plant at Gandhinagar will not be just the largest in Asia, but it will also be the most environmentally friendly.”