Dodla diary's investment in greenfield plant in AP

Dodla Dairy Ltd, a leading dairy company in the South, started in 1998 by entrepreneurs Sesha Reddy and Sunil Reddy, has most of its units in the two Telugu States. It procures, processes, and sells dairy products, including fresh milk, butter, ghee, panneer, curd, flavoured milk, doodh peda, ice cream, and skimmed milk powder. As an expansion Dodla Dairy will invest up to ₹70 crore in a greenfield plant near Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh. The new dairy to be located in Kantipudi village will be ready by end of 2018. The capacity of the plant will initially be two lakh litres/day. According to Sunil Reddy, Managing Director, It will be similar to the one made operational in Choutuppal on the outskirts of Hyderabad recently. In the next few years the company plans to expand to other southern States. The Andhra Pradesh plant will be funded through internal accruals and debt if necessary, Reddy said. With a turnover of ₹1,200 crore, the company has built a network of 50,000 retail and over 3,500 distributor network across nine States. Its capacity stands at 9 lakh litres/day, acquired from roughly two lakh farmers. The Rise Fund investment was the second major global investment in the Hyderabad-based dairy companies in the last couple of years and shows a growing interest. In January 2014, Lactalis, the French major, had bought Carlyle Group-backed Tirumala Milk Products Pvt Ltd for an estimated $270 million. Dodla Dairy will upgrade and expand the plant in Uganda and explore opportunities to expand in the country and others, he said. The firm had acquired a 25,000 litre/day capacity plant a year-and-a-half ago.