The Dharwad Milk Union of the Karnataka Milk Federation will adopt state-of-the-art technology to increase the shelf life of sweets produced by it.
The Modified Atmospheric Packing (MOP) technology will also help the milk union to transport products over longer distances and reach larger markets in North India.
Products such as Ghee Mysuru Pak, Dharwad Pedha, Doodh Pedha and other milk and milk product-based sweets will be sold in the metros and other cities and towns in North India, milk union president Shankar Mugad told journalists in Dharwad on Sunday.
The adoption of MOP technology is expected to provide a shelf life of at least three weeks to various sweets. The current packaging is yielding a shelf life of only one week. A sum of ₹28 lakh is being spent on the new packaging technique.
Among the sweets and other products, paneer is the most sought-after. The demand for paneer is over two tonnes per day. MOP will help the milk union produce more paneer and send it over longer distances. The nutritious green gram laddu introduced recently has become popular in the market, he said. The milk union sells around nine tonnes of butter, one tonne Pedha, six tonnes of ghee and one tonne of Mysuru Pak at regular market cycles.
The milk union procures around 1.5 lakh litres of milk per day. Of this, 1.12 lakh litres is sold directly. Around 50,000 litres of curds and 5,000 litres of butter milk is also being sold. It has set up a procurement centre in Lakamanahalli in Dharwad with a capacity of 4.5 lakh litres.
The milk union comprises 647 milk societies in rural areas in Dharwad, Gadag and Uttara Kannada districts with 82,700 registered milk producers. A total of 260 societies are run by women.
A milk packing unit of one lakh litre capacity was set up in Sirsi in Uttara Kannada, six months ago. The milk union plans to increase the number of hi-tech Nandini parlours to sell all KMF products, Mr. Mugad said.
