TIRUCHY: The ice cream plant built by the Tiruchy District Milk Producers' Cooperative Union (Aavin) at Kottapattu is all set to commence production, as officials have completed the trial run of ice cream manufacturing and have also begun trial production of fermented products on Wednesday.
The project has been implemented at an estimated cost of Rs 21.57 crore under the Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund. The unit is equipped with facilities to produce 16 lakh litres of ice cream and fermented products on a daily basis, officials said.
The Tiruchy Cooperative Milk Producers' Union has around 54,000 members from 573 societies across Tiruchy, Ariyalur and Perambalur districts, producing about 5.20 lakh litres of milk per day. While Aavin distributes around 1.5 lakh litres daily in Tiruchy district, the remaining milk is transported to Chennai, officials said.
Apart from supplying milk, Tiruchy Aavin has been selling value-added products such as ice cream, butter, ghee, paneer, curd and milk sweets, which are currently transported from Madurai and Chennai, through around 15 parlours established across Tiruchy.
With the new plant ready to begin operations, customers in Tiruchy will soon be able to purchase a variety of ice creams as the plant will produce 6,000 litres of ice cream in varieties such as cups, cones and candy, and 10,000 litres of fermented products including curd (in packets and cups), lassi and buttermilk, officials said.
N Muthumari, General Manager of Aavin, Tiruchy, told TNIE that the work commenced in 2023. Civil works and the installation of machinery have been completed and trial runs are currently under way.
"As the infrastructure is ready for production, we carried out a trial run for ice cream production a few days ago. After its successful completion, we have now started trial runs for fermented products. Earlier, we were relying on Madurai and Chennai for ice cream and other dairy products. Once production begins, we will have sufficient products to cater to the needs of customers in Tiruchy and surrounding districts," she said.
Apart from Tiruchy, officials plan to supply the products to Karur, Pudukottai, Sivagangai, Dindigul, Ariyalur, Perambalur, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur and Mayiladuthurai as well, officials added.