Banas Dairy () (Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Federation, Palanpur) is a division of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation which is under the ownership of Ministry of Cooperation, Government of Gujarat based in the Banaskantha district of Gujarat, India and is Asia's largest milk producer. It was founded in 1969, in accordance with the 1961 rule of the National Dairy Development Board under Operation Flood. Galbabhai Nanjibhai Patel played an important role in the foundation of the dairy. It is headquartered at Palanpur.
Banas Dairy collects an average of around 50 lakh liters of milk every day. In winter, milk collection increases to 76 lakh liters of milk every day, the highest collection rate in Asia.
The company's products are marketed by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, Anand. and it is currently largest member union of the latter.
Banas Dairy has 0.18 million shareholders, which are spread across 1,450 cooperative societies. Till year 2014 it was procuring milk from more than 3.5 Lakh milk producers of Banaskantha district of Gujarat and measuring approximately 33 lakh liters of milk per day in Gujarat state.
History
In March 2021, Banaskantha District Co-operative Milk Producers Union Limited (BDCMPUL), popularly known as Banas Dairy, has inaugurated a buttermilk packaging plant set up with an investment of ₹10.30 crore. Present capacity of the plant is a packaging capacity of two lakh litres buttermilk.
In September 2020, considering the growing demand for potato-based products across the world, Banas Dairy is planning to establish a Rs 100-crore potato processing unit in North Gujarat. The unit is planned to be set up in Banaskantha district in Northern Gujarat which is known for potato farming and the unit is planned to produce 50,000 metric tonnes of potatoes is focused for producing French fries and other 12 other potato products for catering both domestic and international markets in the Southeast Asia annually. The civil work for the project has already begun and the machinery for the plant is planned to be imported from Netherlands and the production is targeted to begin by October 2021. Currently, Banas Dairy is one of the 18 cooperative unions operating under the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) and procures around 7,000 metric tonnes of potatoes from 500 odd farmers and manufacturers potato-based products at a hired unit in North Gujarat.
Plants
Banas Dairy currently has four running dairy plants (LLPD indicates Lakh Litres Per Day, MTPD indicates Metric Tons Per Day) Palanpur Banas - I Plant Capacity - 7 LLPD Banas - II Plant Capacity - 24 LLPD Banas - III Plant Capacity - 18 LLPD Cheese Plant Capacity - 900 MTPD Haryana Faridabad Plant Capacity - 10 LLPD-The foundation stone was laid in February 2014 with a planned investment of Rs 300 crores. The processing capacity for initial years is one million litres per day (lpd) and expandable up to 1.5 million lpd. Lucknow Lucknow Plant Capacity - 5-10 LLPD- In year 2014,Banaskantha District Co-operative Milk Producer's Union Ltd (Banas Dairy)has planned to open a plant of 0.5 million lpd each in Lucknow soon. Kanpur Kanpur Plant Capacity - 5-10 LLPD- In year 2014,Banaskantha District Co-operative Milk Producer's Union Ltd (Banas Dairy)has planned to open a plant of 0.5 million lpd in Kanpur soon. Banas Dairy currently has two running cattle feed plants Katarva Katarva Plant is Asia's largest cattle feed plant. It has a capacity of 1800 MTPD Palanpur Palanpur plant has a capacity of 700 MTPD