Dairy industry is a well developed one among the major food enterprises and continue to make rapid strides among the top rankers. This is especially so given the fact that with growing human population and slow but steady rise in per capita income, especially in developing countries. The growth in the dairy industry is encouraging with maximum growth being recorded in developing countries, varying between 3 to 5 per cent and the statistics for the entire world is 658.7 million tonnes, milk equivalent for the year 2006.Though
milk production, collection, transportation, storage and distribution have been executed very neatly in developed dairying countries, there still remains to be a vast scope for the utilization available milk in rural areas of developing countries.
Because of the availability of small quantity of milk and long distances from main dairy plants resulting in high transportation cost, it becomes unviable to collect milk from these remote locations. Hence, establishment of a dairy plant at locations where fresh and abundant milk is available is considered as a profitable adventure.
Marketing potential, raw milk availability, its quality and
price and product mix are considered as important factors of dairy plant operation that decide the capacity of the milk plant in terms of handling milk and the equipment required for receiving, processing, storage and packaging of milk. * The dairy plant should be located in a suitable site and the approximate area required for the plant must be arrived at after taking into account all the deciding factors. Special care has to be given for the orientation of the building, giving due care to the north-south orientation, wind direction, approach road, and the effluent discharge.
* Another essential point is the availability of
abundant and fresh water which may be from under ground source or from a local municipality. The quality of the water is important with regard to its salt content and microbial count. Hard water having dissolved carbonates and bicarbonates along with iron poses a lot of problems in the dairy, especially so with boiler maintenance and from animal health point of view.
* The area surrounding the
proposed dairy plant shall preferably be free from trees, food storage depots, waste materials and overgrown vegetations since their presence attract rodents, insects and birds which would ultimately enter the dairy plants.
* Sufficient space should be available to accommodate the effluent treatment plant at suitable point taking into account the prevailing wind direction and speed. A drain or water stream should be available nearby in order to discharge the treated effluent water.
* Electrical substation, its capacity, location of the poles, high tension / low tension lines requires attention along with telephone lines and exchange.