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Dairy industry of national capital region fuelling domestic food supply
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Saturday, 31 October, 2015, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Er Mandeep Singh
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fiogf49gjkf0d North India is the major producer of milk and dairy products like butter, ghee, clarified butter, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt and domestic sweets like burfi, rabri, kulfi. The average consumption of milk per day is more than 8 lakh litre alone in the national capital region – Delhi. Delhi Milk Scheme is a subordinate office of ministry of agriculture – department of animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries, which alone is incapacitated to meet this ever increasing demand-supply ratio of milk. The initial installed capacity for milk production in Delhi was for 2.55 lakh litre that gradually increased to five lakh litre in 1990. The Indian Dairy Association (IDA) started Delhi Milk Scheme in 1959 to provide wholesome milk to the people of Delhi for their daily milk consumption as well as dairy food production. IDA is the apex body of dairy industry in India that was established in 1948, headed by president, supported by vice-president and 19 executive committee members to function closely with dairy producers across the country. IDA provides a common platform for disseminating scientific information and development of dairy board (NDDB-National Dairy Development Board) by engaging scientists, engineers, doctors, traders, dairy academic institutions and dairy development organisations in India.
Collection and supply Dairy industry in North India is supported by number of public-private ventures and milk cooperative societies to supply milk for dairy ingredients, health supplements, cosmetics, toiletries and pharmaceutical industries. Gopal Dixit, founder, G K Dairy and Milk Products (Pvt.) Ltd, stated in a recent interview that the company supplies more than 10,000 litre of milk everyday in Delhi. Under his progressive leadership, the company has established more than 4,500 milk collection centres across various states in North India. These collection centres are well equipped with best technology for testing and delivery of quality milk of various grades – cream, toned, skimmed. These collection centres collect over 1.5 lakh litre milk from a network of milk cooperative societies in villages every day. Gopaljee Group strives to provide its farmers with maximum benefits while delivering world class milk & dairy products to their customers in the northern region of the country.
Another milk giant – Mother Dairy commissioned in 1974, owns a portion of NDDB due to its significant contribution to dairy industry across India in making it a milk-sufficient nation. Today, Mother Dairy manufactures, markets & sells milk and milk products including cultured products, ice creams, cottage cheese and clarified butter under the Mother Dairy brand along with diversified portfolio of agriculture produce under Safal and F&V farm brands. History of Paras reflects back to 1960 for first procurement of 60 litre milk from a dairy cooperative. Today, under the visionary leadership of Ved Ram & Sons the company is one of the connoisseurs in dairy industry that facilitates over 2.5 lakh litre of milk alone in the Delhi metro region. In 1987, Paras established VRS Foods Ltd to rapidly challenge itself in production of dairy supplements and dairy food products.
A typical modernised dairy plant such as one headed by Delhi Milk Scheme in West Patel Nagar, New Delhi, includes collecting and processing tanks, milk pasteurisers, packaging machines, refrigeration tanks or refrigerating system to pack milk of different grades. Depending upon the purpose of dairy unit, it may be equipped with dairy food processing units to produce milk, cream, yogurt, clarified butter, cheese or other dairy supplements on daily basis. Many milk cooperatives today in the national capital region are focussing on clean production and processing technologies to meet the domestic and industrial requirement of milk. Huge amount of money is spent on education and training of farmers to care for farm animals for their supplements, nutrition and vaccination requirement. Farmers setting up milk collecting banks are supported to provide best technology for storage, preservation and pretreatment milk as well as credit facility for promotion of village farm milk and dairy food production in North Indian states like Haryana, Punjab, UP and Gujarat. Milk cooperatives are farmer-centric for dairy production and do not want to compromise for health and hygiene of the animal as well as the farmer or its village.
Value chain Many institutions are promoting dairy and farm research, testing and quality production to empower dairy farmers with the support infrastructure for a profitable venture concerning institutions and milk cooperatives. A significant portion of the income is ploughed back into the value chain to maintain the support system and improve agriculture techniques such as organic farming and cropping.
Mother Dairy has supported an operation “golden flow” under NDDB to boost the edible oil segment under prevailing set-up. Major market for edible oils in North Indian states is provided by cream, ghee, clarified butter, butter, butter fats, processed vanaspati and dalda. Ghee has a long history associated with Mughal tradition and northern cuisines. Ghee is considered an ideal fat for deep-frying due to its smoke point (where its molecules begin to break down) at 250°C, which is well above typical cooking temperatures (around 200°C) and above that of most vegetable oils.
Methods of production Traditionally, ghee made from cow’s milk is sacred to Hindus, which offer fire sacrifices in their prayers. Butter is milk fat produced by churning cream. Ghee is a type of clarified butter prepared by gentle heating of butter and removal of solid matter. Milk fat of butter contains mild solids and water of butter fat called buttermilk. Clarified butter is made by melting butter and allowing the components to separate by density. Water of butter fat is gradually removed by gradual skimming and separating buttermilk. Commercial methods of production include direct evaporation accomplished by decantation and centrifugation followed by vacuum drying. Another commercial method involves centrifuging cream emulsion.
Ghee is prepared by simmering butter and removing residue until milk solids caramelise making them nutty and aromatic. Some preparation involves addition of spices and colouring material to improve the quality of ghee. The texture, colour and taste of ghee depend on the quality of milk, quality of butter fat and duration of boiling. In many commercial preparations partially hydrogenated oil known as vanaspati or dalda oil are marketed as pure ghee due to its cost competitiveness. Vanaspati oil uses partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or palm oil or lard in some regions that alter the fat content of ghee. Some consider vanaspati as unsuitable for digestion because residues from vegetable oil impart different colour and texture to butter interfering in absorption of fats by body cells and tissues. Some suitable colour from ratonjot root or alcoholic extract of turmeric is added to vanaspati to improve optical qualities and taste of ghee for final preparations. Many members of Indian Agriculture Commission and government research laboratories participated in expressing interest over matter of colouring of ghee. A committee appointed in 1959 took a decade to identify suitable methods for commercial preparation of ghee and related fats to market products under appropriate labels and draft legislations for its use in herbal compounds.
Milk gets its unique, great taste by monitoring quality, special care, and attention to processing and packaging. Dairy food products produced from the milk of mammals like cow, buffalo, sheep, goat, camel, yak etc. form a staple diet in north India and many parts of the country and the world. Dairy products like milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, cottage cheese, clarified butter and ghee are usually high energy-yielding food products used in variety of preparation as culinary foods. Milk and dairy products also support the climatic conditions that prevail in northern states of India. Temperature in Delhi usually range from 5 to 40 °C (41.0 to 104.0 °F) all around the year, with the lowest and highest temperatures ever recorded being -6.7 and 47.8 °C (19.9 and 118.0 °F) respectively. The annual mean temperature observed is 25 °C (77 °F). Delhi has a typical humid subtropical climate with warm summers, average monsoons and dry winters. Humid and arid climate favour liquid foods and nutritional products. Nothing is more beneficial than flavoured milk, milk sweets and condensed milk used in number of tropical drinks as a cooler for body and mind. Food habit of national region is also influenced from old Mughal cuisines with a unique style of cooking – furnace baking (tandoor) using butter oil or ghee or deep-frying in monsoons.
Many popular Indian dishes are famous in the world due to their distinctive aroma and taste developed by cooking whole ground and spices in ghee. Mughal style butter curry is an elaborated main course in buffet preparation. Nutrition fact file issued by US department of agriculture states that clarified butter, ghee produced from cow’s milk contains 62% saturated fats and 8 mg of cholesterol per teaspoon. Every 100 gram of ghee contains 62% saturated fats, 28.7% monosaturated fats, 3.7% polyunsaturated fats, 4 % trans fats, 1.5% Omega-3-fatty acids, 2.2% Omega-6-fatty acids and 256 mg (2.5%) cholesterol. Traditional Indian medicines in Ayurveda use ghee as medium of oil for preparation of herbal compounds as opposed to many synthetic preparations that use animal fat. Sunflower oil, vegetable oil, sesame oil, olive oil and mustard oil considered in preparation of herbal medicines offer many advantages but the therapeutic effect of ghee gives prime importance in healing of ulcers and certain skin allergies. Ghee is used preferentially for the diseases caused by Pitta Dosha, constipation and ulcers due to its rasayana (vitalising) properties.
(The author is MD, VMG Biotech Consultants. He can be reached at s_mandeep8@yahoo.co.in)
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