Mangaluru : The Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) has given Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Union Ltd. (DKMUL) in-principle approval to set up an ice cream plant in the city, according to Raviraj Hegde, DKMUL president.

As per the proposal, the plant would be set up on the premises of DKMUL’s dairy at Kulashekara. The project cost had been tentatively estimated at ₹30 crore, he said.

The plant should be able to manufacture ice cream between 10,000 litres and 20,000 litres a day, he said.

Once ready it would be the fourth ice cream plant in the State under KMF. Other plants were in Bengaluru, Hassan, and Ballari, he told The Hindu.

Presently, the coastal belt got ‘Nandini’ brand ice cream of KMF mainly from Bengaluru and Hassan. There was good demand for the product in the belt, especially during summer. But there was short supply. The demand from dealers for the ice cream was on the rise. Hence, DKMUL had planned to open a plant in the city, he added.

Mr. Hegde pointed out that once the technical know-how of the project was ready the cooperative would call bids to set up the plant.

The cooperative would also take a call on whether to produce traditional flavours or to go for new variants, he said.

Mr. Hegde said that DKMUL procured an average 4.5 lakh litres of milk from milk producers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts daily. In peak season, the daily collection went up up to 4.85 lakh litres. When the market demand was lower, the excess milk was converted into powder.

DKMUL became the first among the 14 cooperative milk unions in the State to launch cold coffee and ‘kashaya milk’ last week.

The ‘kashaya’ has been prepared using sterilised homogenised double-tonned milk, jaggery, turmeric, dry ginger, black pepper, coriander, jeera and other spices. The union is using special instant coffee powder, sugar and sterilised homogenised double-tonned milk to prepare the cold coffee.