Aavin, the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, has called for Expression of Interest (EOI) from interested consultants to study the possibilities of manufacturing packaged mineral water in a commercial manner.
The milk major has a facility at Madhavaram, where it can make 10,000 bottles a day. Official sources in Aavin said the idea was to use the same facility and those available at dairies to produce packaged mineral water. “Other cooperatives, including Karnataka’s Nandhini, have their own bottled water brands. While we have cookies and flavoured milk, when our products are supplied for large functions or even sold at kiosks in bus stands and railway stations, customers also demand water. We are unable to provide that. Sometimes, we arrange for supply of mineral water if the orders are large,” a source said.
The cooperative federation has reverse osmosis plants, which it uses to produce water for milk processing and cleaning of dairy plants. “This is only an additional means of income and diversification of our products. Our target is to make profits for our milk-pouring farmers, and since the capacity is available in our dairies, we thought we could put it to better use,” another official said.
Meanwhile, Aavin has also called for tenders for the supply of one lakh packaged drinking water bottles per day, in 500 ml and 1000ml variants, in Chennai and to its other offices for a period of three years.
