India produces around 5 million metric tons of Ghee every year. It is the second-largest milk-based product consumed in India after curd. Since ancient times, it has been used for cooking, medicinal and ritual purposes in the region. Although it is largely produced in the unorganized sector, the market penetration of the organized sector is increasing gradually. The COVID-19 pandemic has further boosted the demand for packaged food products, including packaged Ghee. Amul Dairy, market leader in the Indian dairy sector, has a dominant market share in the packaged Ghee market.
Range of packaged Ghee products from Amul Dairy
- Mr. Deepak Singh, Vice President, Separation and Flow Technologies Business, GEA India
Amul Dairy at Anand is one of the largest milk unions in Gujarat and manufactures various dairy products. Their Ghee production unit had a conventional pre-stratification setup which used to cause high-fat losses on the order of 2%. With millions of liters of butter melted every day, the 2% fat loss was significantly impacting profitability. The traditional setup also posed operational challenges and was challenging with regard to sustainable production methods.
To overcome this, Amul requested technical support from all the leading technology solution providers, including GEA. GEA understood the importance of the project and proposed KPIs very much in line with Amul objectives – including guaranteed production losses of less than 1% fat in the serum, and a safer, more hygienic production process.
GEA developed its groundbreaking serum Separator based on Amul Dairy’s requirements for the local market. With a capacity of 3,000 liters per hour, the separator allows Amul to bypass the conventionalpre-stratification setup and scale up its production to generate an additional production volume of 6 MT per day, without any additional equipment or investment in the plant. This new installation has reduced the effluent load on the ETP section, resulting in large savings on the overall power and fuel consumption and benefiting Amul Dairy’s sustainability initiatives. The GEA serum Separator also helps reduce the turnaround time of the production process.
The GEA team worked closely with Amul to develop a customized solution, taking time to thoroughly understand the nature of the entire process. Once Amul’s requirements were clear, the team in Germany began innovating the GEA serum Separator at its facility.
The GEA serum Separator in Amul Dairy’s plant at Anand, Gujarat
Developing the separator itself was just one piece of the puzzle for the GEA team in Germany.
- Mr. Thomas Veer, Product Manager Sales, Separation Business Unit, GEA Germany
Whether for retrofit or greenfield projects, GEA provides solutions for the complete upstream process, such as milk clarifying and skimming separators, pasteurizers, standardization units and continuous butter making machines. At the same time, GEA supports customers throughout the entire project journey – from design to basic engineering, to machine selection, to the final performance test.
The GEA serum Separator receives the melted butter or phase inverted cream in the bowl, which has a network of smartly placed disks that rotate at high speed, separating the melted butter into fatty phase and serum. The solid contaminants from the liquid are pushed out towards the outlet and cleared smartly from the chamber periodically by the hydraulic bowl opening system.
The robust engineering allows the serum separator to function as a standalone unit or be integrated with future automation solutions.
Amul Dairy congratulated the GEA team for developing such a revolutionary product that has transformed Amul’s Ghee production.
- Mr. Amit Vyas, Managing Director, Amul Dairy