Given that Maharashtra ranks high among the major milk-producing States, it comes as no surprise that the dairy sector should offer a host of opportunities.

Nandkishore Attal, a 37-year-old first-generation entrepreneur, is one who has made the most of the opportunities.

His Pune-based proprietorship firm Vaishnodevi Dairy Products Pvt Ltd, which began in April 2007 with a capital of Rs 50 lakh, has touched a turnover of Rs 180 crore in the fiscal just gone by. With plans to expand both the production capacity and product range with further investments, Attal is targeting a top line of over Rs 400 crore by the end of FY15.

The son of a Hyderabad-based wholesale trader of grains and other grocery items, the Pune chapter in Attal’s life began modestly enough when he arrived in the city in the late 1990s armed with a Commerce degree. Beginning his career at his brother-in-law’s firm which manufactured computer stationery, he subsequently dabbled with a small business of his own that traded in computer consumables and also set up a carbon paper manufacturing unit.

First brush

His first brush with the milk business was in 2003 when he and a partner set up Vaishno Devi Milk Products, a company that bought milk from a private dairy and marketed it under the Shree brand in Pune and Thane. “The business was relatively small, but it provided me both experience and exposure to the operational nitty-gritty of the milk business,” Attal recalls.

It was around 2007 that he decided to take a plunge into doing something big. “I exited the company and ploughed back my profits into a new (present day) company,” he says. The journey began with the acquisition of a sick dairy unit in Hinjewadi that could process 70,000 litres a day, including work for some large dairies in the country.

In 2010, Attal bought a plot at Urulikanchan, some 30 km from Pune and shifted operations there. The Rs 30-crore investment that involved ploughing back all the profits into the business helped set up a unit to process 3 lakh litres of milk per day. By the end of the 2012 fiscal, the turnover from the milk and dairy products business – mainly skimmed milk powder (SKM) dairy whitener and cow’s milk ghee – had touched Rs 150 crore.

New products

Attal has now chalked out plans to double processing capacity and add new products. Vaishnodevi Dairy recently launched fresh packaged cow’s milk under the Shubhi brand and has begun supplying 20,000 litres per day in Pune and Thane. In the second phase, volume will touch 50,000 litres per day.

“In a year’s time, the capacity will be scaled up to nearly eight lakh litres a day,” Attal says, adding that the funds for the Rs 25-crore capex will come from a combination of debt and equity. The products due for launch include sweetened condensed milk and dahi, paneer and flavoured yoghurt. It will also set up a pan-India distribution network.

(Please send feedback, comments or suggestions to emergingentrepreneurs@thehindu.co.in)

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