Akshayakalpa sets up a new dairy ecosystem in TN with an investment of ₹15 crore

Akshayakalpa Farms & Foods Pvt Ltd (known as Akshayakalpa Organic), an organic dairy firm and a manufacturer of milk products, has established a new milk sourcing ecosystem near Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu with an investment of ₹15 crore, a move that is expected to help the company expand its supply to the fast-growing organic food market in Chennai.

The new sourcing ecosystem includes a network of 100 organic farmers, chilling centres of varying capacities, and a new milk processing centre and large R&D operations (comprising model farming units and associated facilities) at Pooriyampakkam village near Chengalpattu. This is the second processing facility of the company.

“We have been working for the past four years to develop the ecosystem here in Tamil Nadu. We have onboarded farmers from the region through various engagement initiatives during these years. We started the construction of the processing factory by the end of 2022. It is now ready with a capacity to process 40,000 litres of milk every day,” Shashi Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder of Akshayakalpa Farms & Foods told businessline.

The company identified about 100 farmers, engaged them, and spent about 2-3 years with them to put an organic production system in place. The company takes care of farm designing, entire financing, veterinary, and associated services. Each farmer will produce milk in the morning and evening and keep it in the chilling facility. The chilled milk gets processed at the new facility, which will produce milk, curd, and paneer for the Chennai market.

Currently, the company is securing about 4,000 litres a day from the 100-odd farmers. “In the next one year, we would like to increase the production capacity to 15,000-20,000 litres a day. We plan to achieve this by significantly increasing the number of farmers as also making the existing farms bigger,” said Kumar.

With the new sourcing system and processing unit, the entire Chennai demand will be met by the local facility. Earlier, the company was serving the Chennai market from its first unit in Tiptur in the Tumkur region in Karnataka.

Right now, we are selling about 5000 litres in Chennai, making it the largest supplier of organic milk in Chennai. We are also the biggest in India with a production of 90,000 litres of organic milk per day from our cluster er in Tiptur, he said.

The company is currently focusing on three markets in South Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad and has a customer base of more than 60,000. It is also selling long-shelf products in Pune, Mumbai, and the National Capital Region.

It clocked a revenue of ₹195 crore in FY23 and expects to end this fiscal with a revenue of about ₹300 crore.