Vinamilk milks the market

Vinamilk - the number one domestic market liquid milk maker - is ramping up efforts for completion of its two landmark milk processing facilities costing more than VND4 trillion ($190 million).

The first facility, based in Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (IP) in southern Binh Duong province, was successfully commissioned on March 26.

Specialised in producing powdered milk for children with an annual capacity of 54,000 tonnes, the plant features a closed automatic production system, ranging from processing to packaging, and a state-of-the art electronic oversight system.

Particularly, its two drying towers are some of the biggest with leading edge technology in Asia.  

The second liquid milk processing facility, covering 20ha in My Phuoc IP in Binh Duong province, is now in construction finalisation stage, preparing for launching on April 30.

With VND2.4 trillion ($115 million) in total investment, the plant will have an annual capacity of 1.2 million litres per day in the first phase which will be doubled in the second phase - tantamount to more than 800 million litres per year - equal to the production of Vinamilk’s nine existing plants and will be Asia’s biggest plant by that time.

“With these two cutting-edge facilities, we expect to save costs, while bolstering production efficiency,” said Mai Kieu Lien, general director of Vinamilk.

The two plants are constructed in line with environmentally friendly criteria ISO14025, which will help save energy consumption and handle waste properly.

Vinamilk’s products made inroads in 26 countries worldwide and 50 per cent of its powder milk production output was shipped abroad, occupying 70 per cent of the company’s export value, said Lien.

With these two super-plants coming on stream and gathering stable production, Vinamilk strives to materialise its goal of hitting $3 billion revenue target by 2017 and be listed among top 50 milk businesses globally.