GEA to Build Asia’s Largest Skim Milk Powder Plant in IndiaGEA to Build Asia’s Largest Skim Milk Powder Plant in India
July 17, 2017

Process technology provider GEA received an order to construct a skim milk powder plant in Gandhinagar, India that will be largest plant of its kind in Asia when production begins in 2018, the German firm announced on July 13.
“We will provide AmulFed with a hygienically-superior plant that will deliver peak performance,” Abhay Chaudhari, country managing director of the India cluster for GEA, said in a press release. “This AmulFed milk powder plant at Gandhinagar will not be just the largest in Asia but it will also be the most environmentally friendly.”
Contracted by Indian firm AmulFed Dairy, formerly known as Mother Dairy, GEA is slated to provide a turnkey dairy plant that will produce 150 tn/day of skim milk powder and 120 tn/day of dairy whitener/baby food. AmulFed’s plant will have a milk processing capacity of 90,000 litres/hr.
According to GEA, some features of the yet-to-be-constructed plant are:
- The use of a Mechanical Vapor Re-compression (MVR) system from GEA within the evaporation plant to continuously recycle energy by recompressing the vapor within the evaporator. This reduces energy costs and the CO2 footprint to minimize the environmental load.
- The use of a Reverse Osmosis (RO) polisher to treat the milk condensate from the evaporation plant and recycle the water for reuse 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 SANICP 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 particulates and, therefore, a more homogenous final product.
- It will also be equipped with powder packing and a conveying system from GEA.
- The plant will be designed to operate in fully automated mode. This includes the powder production, conveying, storage, packing, final packed product conveying and a complete management information system.
AmulFed operates two other milk powder plants at Gandhinagar and sells skim milk under the Amul brand and baby milk powder as Amul Spray. GEA said the plant will be one of the “most advanced” yet constructed by the firm.
The project's pricetag was not disclosed.
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