Mangaluru :   The 65th All India Cooperative Week celebrations will start at Kulashekara Milk Union premises from November 14.

Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Union Ltd. (DKMUL) will launch its buttermilk in a new flavour, jeera masala, on Wednesday. In addition, it will release its existing Suvasitha flavour milk in cast polypropylene bottles (CPPs) to the market on the same day.

Addressing reporters here on Monday, Raviraj Hegde, president, DKMUL said that the buttermilk will be released in 250-ml sachets.

It will be the 27th product of the cooperative.

Suvasitha milk in 200-ml CPP bottles will be available in five flavours: badam, pista, mango, rose and chocolate. It can be stored up to 90 days. So far it was marketing Suvasitha milk in glass bottles.

B.V. Sathyanarayana, managing director of the cooperative, said that though production of Suvasitha milk in CPP bottles is a bit costlier it would not make a much difference in the total profit of the cooperative. The recyclable CPP bottles are easy to transport and have double sealing.

The CPP bottling unit set up at an estimated cost of ₹1.5 crore will be inaugurated on the occasion.

To a question he said that its fodder densification unit at Konthegowdana Halli, about 10 km away from Hassan towards Holenarasipur, has stopped production after this May.

This unit cut fodder into small pieces and made blocks of 15 kg each. Dry stalks of paddy, jowar and ragi (finger millet) are shredded, compressed and packed as separate blocks with plastic wrappers for supplying to farmers.

The production has been stopped as farmers were now getting other fodder at cheaper cost than the cost of the fodder blocks of the cooperative.

Mr. Hegde said that the cooperative now procured 4.6 lakh litres of milk daily and sold 3.4 lakh litres of milk. The remaining milk were being converted as by-products. It sold 60,000 kg curd a day.

The president said that a new 2.50 lakh litre processing capacity milk dairy of the cooperative would be commissioned at Uppuru, Udupi district, next month. It has been built at an estimated cost of ₹87 crore.