Tanga Fresh Limited
The move is aimed at ensuring that milk from smallholder farmers is purchased during all seasons.
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian in Tanga at the weekend, Tanga Fresh Limited Production Technologist Adam Gamba said they are on the way to enlarge the factory’s processing machineries after they started receiving more milk from the smallholder dairy farmers.
Gamba also said the expansion processing will cost 12bn/-.
“We started as a dairy processing factory in 1996, and in May 1997 we made the first processing machinery which after eight months of operation, produced 360,000 litres whereby the capacity of the installed plant was only 15,000 litres a day,” he said.
He added: “Up to 2013, our dairy processed milk record showed that we have produced 14 million litres, this being the a very big achievement.”
He pointed out that plans are to complete the factory expansion as soon as possible, but added that there is likelhood to have delays as the firm has a pending case before the Fair Competition Commission (FCC) that it has violated the law by buying competitors in the business.
“Our stakeholders are awaiting the decision by the FCC. We have been fined to pay between 860m/- and 1.2bn/- in penalty. We don’t understand why we have to pay such a big amount,” he said.
Tanga Fresh Limited Production Manager Donatus Ndauka said: “in the expansion project we are also planning to extend the milk collecting stations. We believe after opening more stations, more milk will be collected and our products will be sustainable.”
Ndauka added that they are now able to produce large quantities of dairy cheese during this rainy season because they get sufficient milk from the dairy farmers.
“We used to produce cheese only when there was sufficient milk. Of course in the rainy season many dairy farmers collect more milk than during the dry season. So the excess milk from the 50, 000 litres produced a day is processed as cheese,” he said.
A senior sales officer with the firm, Protas Kimario, said the company is also working to ensure that the product is exported after installing the processing new machines.
The new packaging system would keep the milk fresh for 6 to 7 months, he said.
Kimario also said: “On the milk purchase prices we pay about 750/- per litre compared to farmers in the Southern Highlands regions of Njombe, Iringa and Mbeya where they get 550/- per litre.”
For his part, Tanga Dairy Co-operatives Union (TDCU) Secretary General said over the years and through enabling efforts by TDCU, milk collected from its members for processing has been increasing from 360,000 litres in 1997 to 13.49 million litres in 2012.
He also said that TDCU, which owns 42 percent shares in Tanga Fresh Limited, has made a joint venture with DOB from The Netherlands to meet their share target of 52 percent by 2018.
He pointed out that the process of share contribution from the farmers is still in accumulation to the target of 300m/-.
“We have eighteen Primary Cooperative Societies (PCS) in Tanga District, four PCS in Muheza District, three PCS in Lushoto District, three PCS in Pangani District, one PCS in Mkinga District and one in Korogwe District. Most of them are within the distance of 120 kilometers,” he noted.
The union was registered in 1993 and it is the only cooperative union in Tanzania dealing with dairy farming. The milk producers are smallholders, mainly situated in rural areas, keeping one to ten dairy cattle.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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