Marmum to spend Dh10m on capacity expansion

Marmum Dairy Farm - a 100 per cent subsidiary of Dubai Investments - has chalked out a Dh10 million expansion plan whereby the production capacity of the company will go up threefold to 100,000 litres per day.

The project which is expected to be complete by November, will see the production of fresh milk, currently at 25,000 litres per day, grow by 25 to 30 per cent.

The herd size also will go up from 1,000 cows to 1,500, with the additional cows coming from Australia. The company's product range includes fresh juice and yoghurt, apart from fresh milk.

Marmum, which commands 10 per cent of the UAE market currently being dominated by companies like Al Rawabi, Al Ain and Al Marai of Saudi Arabia, aims to improve this share to 25 per cent within five years.

Marmum has built up its big hopes on the premise that it is one of the very few farms in the region where feeds are exclusively of pure vegetable origin and the use of hormones are totally ruled out.

Dr Arjun S., farm manager, said that at Marmum Dairy Farm, right from its inception, the management has been aware of the importance of ethics and morals in its practices.

"Marmum has been confident that by adhering to nature's guidelines, the company would never put a society at risk in terms of their well-being," Arjun added.

Shukri Saleh Al Mehairi, business development manager of the company, noted that the commercial emphasis had pushed dairy farms in most part of the world to go in for unconventional feeds to supplement natural feeds as they are cheaper, paving the way to introduce feeds made from animal wastes such as bone meal, offal meal, fish meal, among others, for animals which are essentially meant to thrive on the flora found in nature.

Marmum Dairy, which has been in operation since 1982, was acquired by Dubai Investments in 1996.

Stating that Marmum Dairy Farm is the only farm in the region with an independent waste water treatment plant built at a cost of Dh2 million, S.R.K. Raju, national sales and marketing manager of the company, noted that the Farm has recently signed an agreement with APV International to supply high quality dairy equipment and machinery.

The company has launched Laban Heba and Laban Sanuth during this summer. Made from fresh milk, these new products have been instant hits right from their launch.