The
food builders
Tetra
Pak, a firm with 18,100 installed processing units worldwide, fears
that smaller firms and second-hand equipment could queer the pitch in
India
The
milk industry in India is witnessing a stupendous growth. The production
of liquid milk touched a high of 85 million tonnes in 2001-02 placing
the industry first in the world. But the irony of the situation is that
in spite of such plentiful production and availability of milk, only
14 per cent is converted into value added products. Therefore, the
industry provides an immense potential for milk processing. Realising
this potential, Tetra Pak, one of the world’s leading players in the
manufacturing and supply of liquid food processing and packaging systems,
opened a processing equipment unit in India in 1997.
Tetra
Pak ventured into the arena of processing machinery in 1991, focusing
primarily on liquid food processing, plant engineering and cheese manufacturing
equipment. The company commenced its operations in India in early 1997
from its plant at Takwe near Pune. Today, Tetra Pak India is a processing
and packaging solutions partner to many private and cooperative-sector
organisations, like Nestle, Britannia, Hindustan Lever, GCMMF (Gujarat
Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation), NDDB (National Dairy Development
Board), Pepsi and Coke, and enjoys an estimated market share of 30 per
cent.
The
company has 100 filling machines in the field, about 140 homogenisers
and ice-cream freezers, about 35 self cleaning separators and 1,400
solid bowl separators, but the largest installed base is that of heat
exchangers which totals to 3,500 units.
Within
the processing machinery segment, the company offers services for the
dairy industry. For pasteurised milk, UHT(ultra high temperature) milk,
yoghurt, butter, ghee and western dairy products such as ice-cream and
cheese. Besides this their portfolio also includes processes for beverages
such as juices, nectars, carbonates soft drinks and prepared foods such
as tomato puree and other tomato derivatives like soups, sauces and
mango derivatives such as panha.
For
milk processing, Tetra Pak’s range
of equipment includes chilling unit,
pasteurisation module, milk separation station, homogeniser and clean
in process (CIP) station.
The
company has also developed some equipment for manufacturing value added
products from milk. These are cream pasteurisers, separators, ripening
tanks, concentrators, butter melters, butter churns, ghee kettles, stratification
and settling tanks, clarifiers and storage tanks.
Tetra
Pak strives to configure complete processing lines based on customer
requirements for pasteurisation and complemented with modules for de-aeration,
separation, standardisation and homogenisation. For ESL milk, they also
offer three alternative processes depending on the required product
shelf life.
These
are ultra-pasteurisation, pasteurisation and micro-filtration combined,
and bactofugation.
The
milk handling capacity of the equipment ranges from 10,000 to 500,000
litres a day, and processed liquid milk in all its varied forms, such
as, doubled toned, toned, standardised, full cream and whole, flavoured,
sterilised, reconstituted and recombined milk.
All
the equipment is designed in Stainless Steel(SS) 304 or SS 316, SS 316L
or SMO. The surfaces are polished so that they can be easily cleaned
and the equipment is designed keeping the operator’s comfort in mind.
The equipment are manufactured keeping the user aspect in mind. Extensive
microbiological and biochemical inputs go into the design to ensure
product safety. The entire process is traceable electronically from
the control panel mounted on the equipment. The design of the machine
is guided by local food safety laws (PFA Act) and also international
rules and guidelines, thereby guaranteeing total food safety.
Though
the maintenance requirement varies from equipment to equipment, each
of the products carries a maintenance manual which specifies what maintenance
routines are required and at what intervals, “Overall, maintenance is
minimal, which is why the operating cost is lower than other competing
products,” said Ashutosh Manohar, Processing Director, Tetra Pak India.
And
this also clearly defines the company’s USP, which is ‘quality’, and
includes such things as cost effectiveness, efficiency and energy conservation,
and last but not the least the technical support and after sales service
that they provide due to their presence throughout India.
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