Operating as Bhutan Ice Cream, the country’s first Ice cream manufacturing unit has opened up in Hangey village in Sipsu. A group of twenty five villagers named Choling Yargay Daytsen, started the manufacturing unit with support from Livestock department and UNDP’s small grant program funded by Global Environmental Facility.
The group which was doing business of dairy products, saw more benefit from selling ice-cream rather than just selling milk. “The margin is much higher, Nu 400, for ice-cream made out of one liter of milk that sells in just Nu 30”, said Gaurishankar, the leader of the group.
The group is also planning to increase the daily milk production to over 300 liters against 40 liters of what is produced now. ‘So high yielding jersy cows shall be purchased’, said Gaurishankar. Moreover, it is now convenient for milk producers in the area to sell milk.
The obvious challenge that the group is likely to face is the lack of cold storage, difficulty of transportation and trained manpower for maintenance of the production unit.
The production unit has the capacity to produce 45,000 packets of ice-cream with approximate value of Nu 90,000 everyday.
Source: BBS
