Sunday, September 28, 2014

HOW TO START A YOGHURT MANUFATURING COMPANY





 
 
YOGHURT is a pasteurized low-fat milk drink that is fermented and conjugated to a custard-like consistency with mixed lactic acid culture. It may or may not be flavoured according to desired taste. Common flavours used are banana, apple, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, fruit juice and other condiments.
The average person on the street knows what yoghurt is and its refreshing qualities are rather not new. It is consumed all the year round but mostly during the dry season when demand for drinks is always very high because at this time thirst is at its peak. Its popularity as a nutritious food item, especially among the weight-conscious people, has grown tremendously in recent times.
As an entrepreneur you can capitalise on this seasonal demand to make good money by producing this tasty drink in various flavours. You could make drinking yoghurt, set yoghurt, stirred yoghurt or frozen yoghurt with each having its recognisable essential features and requirements relative to quality attributes and basic steps from start to finish.

Yoghurt Market
The market for yoghurt is vast and under-supplied, particularly in the urban and semi-urban areas. This is because there are a few good quality and NAFDAC-approved producers. Even in the rural areas, its patronage is fast increasing. To vegetarians and children, its consumption is a delicacy and a drink they cannot do without. During festive periods and parties you need to observe how this is gulped down by attendee-connoisseurs to have an idea as to how popular yoghurt is with people and the consequent high demand for it.
Produced good quality yoghurt can be sold directly to eateries like snack shops, supermarkets, the various NGOs that run charity homes and a national network of appointed distributors who in turn will appoint their own agents and hawkers on bikes in specific areas. You can also carry the product to church and mosque grounds during their religious services and to events organisers during their numerous social gatherings. Other segments of the market include the colleges, higher institutions and sporting grounds especially during sporting activities and other festivals. Households are not left out. All these constitute the channels of distribution for your finished product. Consumers and distributors will queue up at the gate of your factory once the quality and flavour of your yoghurt appeal to them.
There is a high potential for the export of yoghurt to Ghana , Cote d’Ivoire , Benin Republic , other ECOWAS countries and Central African Republic to earn foreign exchange. One of the local producers is already doing it and is daily smiling to its banks.

Raw Materials
The major raw materials for yoghurt production are skim milk powder (SMP), sugar, stabilizer, preservative, starter of pure culture and flavour. Sugar and stabilizer each has four major functions, preservative one, starter of pure culture one, all in the production process. About five types of milk can be used in production but the most preferred is the SMP. Some of these raw materials are imported but are locally available in the market when desired.

Machinery And Equipment
You need a mixer, a homogenizer, pasteurizer, filler, fermentation vats, freezing storage area, a packaging area etc. There is, however, an automatic yoghurt manufacturing machine that is obtainable locally. This has the capacity to produce 1,000 litres or 16,000 sachets of yoghurt in a day of three shifts. The automatic machine is easy to operate and maintain. It has an in-built arrangement for stirring, re-constitution and incubation. Its use ensures that the yoghurt you produce will be of high quality because it enables you ensure that correct measurement of raw material input and temperature control are met. This will ensure that the finished product will meet the stringent hygienic conditions stipulated by the regulatory authorities like NAFDAC and SON.
The sky is your steppingstone to riches if you scale their hurdles. Some producers have done it so why not you if you are serious about the project. The automatic machine supplier undertakes to install the equipment free of charge, educate you and your staff on how to use the equipment and the due processes to be followed in yoghurt preparation and production. The supplier will also provide you with the relevant after-sales technical backup to ensure that your project starts making profit right from the first day of production.
You can start this project either on a cottage, small-scale or medium-scale. Depending on the income levels and food habits of the people in the area where the cottage project will be sited, a population of about one million people with reasonable purchasing power can profitably sustain the business. If you are in this project, you will be assured of steady market and minor competition once your products are of high quality and are well packaged to have good visual appeal.
Utilities
Steady supply of electric power is very essential. Adequate good quality water is also necessary. Depending on the planned scale of operation, you may or may not need to own your own transport equipment.

Production Processes
Space constraint makes it impossible to give full details here of all the processes involved in production. However these briefly entail the measuring out of the appropriate weight of each raw material per batch of production, thoroughly mixing them, heating the mixture to the appropriate temperature in order to render it free from most harmful and spoilage organisms, cooling and adding starter culture (no overheating please), stabilization, fermentation, incubation, addition of preservatives and flavour(s), mixing, packaging and cooling. Cooling could be done either before or after packaging. The above and the full details and the quality control measures and necessary precautions to be taken to ensure a good quality finished product should be contained in a comprehensive and bankable feasibility report.

Quality Control
Yoghurt is a consumable food item. Therefore, its production has to accord with the highest quality standard possible—this is of paramount importance. But, because the market is vast and the demand for yoghurt outstrips its supply, all manner of get-rich-quick charlatans and humbugs have invaded the market with poor quality product and ridiculously low prices in order to corner part of the under-supplied market. As a result, many of them scarcely care about the quality of milk they use in producing yoghurt or the observance of the due processes and the stringent rules of hygiene set down by the regulatory authorities. This has led NAFDAC to issue some public notices addressed to all the producers, distributors and marketers of yoghurt, advising them on what to do and spelling out penalties for non-compliance with those directives. All these regulatory measures are aimed at protecting the public from the hazards of improper handling and poor storage of the produced yoghurt.
Yoghurt is highly sensitive to bacteria, foreign bodies and temperature. Because of this, proper attention has to be paid at every stage of the manufacturing process. Workers must wear packaging gloves, nose and mouth covers as well as white overalls and caps.

Conclusion
Yoghurt production signals a huge, emerging and rewarding food-based investment opportunity in this virgin sub-sector of the economy any interested, prospective entrepreneurs can tap into to make good money. My recent research convinced me that there is a large and unsatisfied market for good quality yoghurt drink in this country and beyond. Details of the raw materials, their sources, costs and their product mix per batch of production needed to formulate and produce good quality yoghurt, the NAFDAC’s and other regulatory agencies’ prescribed standards to enable you scale their certification hurdles, sources of equipment, manufacturing, organization and technical process flowcharts, product costing, labour categories and costs, implementation schedule, cash flow, balance sheet and profit and loss projections, etc will be incorporated in a comprehensive and bankable feasibility report that interested investors are advised to implement this project successfully.
Those serious investors who are keenly interested in knowing further what it takes generally to establish this project and indeed any other projects in terms of the details of sources and costs of fixed assets, various other inputs, labour and acceptable management practices for optimum yield but who do not want a bankable feasibility report prepared for them can obtain by merely requesting from this writer for a copy of The Comprehensive Industrial Profile On The Abc Of Yoghurt Production.

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