Dodla Dairy Ltd (NSE: DODLA) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 31, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Sunil Dodla — Managing Director
BVK Reddy — Chief Executive Officer
Murali Mohan Raju — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Vinamra Hirawat — Analyst
Aditya — Analyst
Nandita Rajhansa — Analyst
Pratik Kothari — Analyst
Anushka Chitnis — Analyst
Resha Mehta — Analyst
Aejas Lakhani — Analyst
Shaurya Punyani — Analyst
Sameer Gupta — Analyst
Srishti Jain — Analyst
Jayvansh Mehta — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Dodla Dairy Limited Q3 FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I now hand the conference over to Mr Sunil Dodla, Managing Director from Dodla Dairy Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Sunil Dodla — Managing Director
Thank you very much. Good morning. On behalf of Area Limited, I extend a very warm welcome to everyone joining us today on our call. I hope everyone has had its opportunity to go through the financial results, our investor presentation, which has been uploaded on the stock exchanges and on our company website. I’m happy to announce that for the quarter, Dodla has delivered a healthy performance by achieving a year-over-year revenue growth of 21%, reaching INR901 crores in Q3 for the year ’25. As all of you know, Q3 is a relatively a moderate quarter for the overall dairy business due to seasonality dynamics of this industry. Yet was able to grow by a double-digit number and maintain healthy margin levels. This — the growth is witnessed across all the key segments, including India, Africa and Orga Feed with the latter two experiencing a higher-growth as compared to our Indian operations on the back of capacity additions in Q4 last year. Both these segments delivered their highest-ever quarterly revenue in Q3 for the year ’25 and also the revenue for the nine months period from both the business has already surpassed the full-year revenue of the financial year ’24. Our value-added product sales remained soft in this quarter, reflecting the seasonal nature of our industry and they have contributed 32.3% of our total revenues.
Going-forward, we will see an improvement in VAP sales due to the summer season, but over a longer-term, we aim to curb the seasonality effect by expanding it in newer geographies as well as improving our share in the regions where we currently are present. Now coming to the milk procurement, the prices of milk are on the rise. We are entering into the lean season. However, our direct-to-farmer — pharma model helps us maintain the quality of milk procurement and enables us to deliver good-quality milk to our customers on a consistent basis. I would also like to inform you that we have strategically maintained sufficient inventory levels in order to meet our full-year requirements for good-quality milk and satisfy our customers’ demands. To fuel our growth further, the Board has approved a capex of INR280 crores towards a greenfield facility in Maharashtra. This is expected to come on-stream by the end-of-the financial year ’27. We will be funding this capex via a combination of debt and internal accruals.
It will be approximately a 10 lakh liter per day handling capacity plant. As a company, we were able to remain focused on improving our brand salience by maintaining consistency of high-quality in all our products along with ongoing investments towards advertisement and promotional initiatives, which will help us gain new customers and cross-sell our new products to existing customers.
With this brief, I will now hand it over to our CEO of our company, Mr B.V.. Thank you very much.
BVK Reddy — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, sir. As Mr Sunil stated in his opening remarks, we have seen a decent performance in Q3 ’25. The festive season was good and this time we anticipated there was a surge in-demand, which played an important role in achieving this double-digit revenue growth rate. For Indian business, the performance was driven by the combination of overall volume, volume growth along with higher sales compared with the Q3 last year. We have maintained milk — milk prices during this — during the quarter, but we have planned to price hike considering the increase in our procurement cost during this quarter. This increase is in selling price in-line with the industry trend and it is just an increment — inflationary change and there is nothing specific to be concerned about it.
In Africa, we saw a faster revenue growth, thanks to increase in utilization of our new capacity in Kenya, which was added last year. However, our margins were impacted due to delayed monsoon leading to higher procurement cost. We expect this to improve in over couple of months. Our food business is witnessing positive trend and delivering a promising numbers. As mentioned previously, this business plays an virtal role. From the strategic perspective, it helps to improve our relationship with farmers also ensures high-quality nutrition for the category. Speaking of margins, overall margin profile remained in-line with the previous quarter. This stability in margin is a result of our ongoing efforts towards improvement in overall efficiency in both milk procurement and milk processing operations.
Our EBITDA stood 10.6 compared to 11.1 in last year — last quarter and we are confident in maintaining these margin levels as a sustainable basis. Typically, Q3 tends to be a softer quarter for the VAP portfolio due to softness in card sales as well as in the ice-cream segment. However, in a year-end basis, we have witnessed an increase in overall VAP sales with Paneer continuing to perform well. We have — we have also done a bulk sale of S&P butter around INR72 crores in Q3 FY ’25. As we enter the summer season, we are expected to increase our sales contribution reflected in the upcoming quarters, mainly driven by high buttermilk, flavored milk and ice-cream sales. During the quarter, we were able to procure 17.1 lakh liters of melt on average. This was around 17.5 lakh litres in the same-period of the last year.
The average procurement cost is Q3 is — Q3 of ’25 was 35.6 liters to 35.6 per liter. This was around 37.8 liter from the same-period of the last year. The average procurement cost in Q2 FY ’25 was 34.6 per liter. Average meal sales — milk sales is 11.6 lakh liters and an increase of 9.1% on a year-on-year basis. Per sales stood around 307 metric tons with a year-on-year growth of 5.2%. And lastly, the VAP sales were INR281 crores with the — with a growth of 50.9% on a year-on-year basis. Overall, our focus remains on enhancing our procurement strength and widening our product portfolio as well as product distribution range. We also aim to keep our VAP sales contribution above a certain level and maintain overall profitability.
With this, now I request our CFO, Mr Manil share the financial highlights. Thank you.
Murali Mohan Raju — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Mr B.V., and a very good afternoon to all the participants on the call. Talking about quarterly performance in Q3 FY ’25, the revenue from operations came in at INR901 crore versus INR747 crore in Q3 FY ’24. In the quarter, our gross margin stood at 28.2%, which remains broadly in-line with our full-year levels. Employee expenses increased by 19.8%, primarily due to annual increments and some addition of employees in Kenya plant and Arja plant in. Other expenses remained in-line with the previous quarter. We reported an EBITDA of INR96 crores as against INR86 crores during Q3 FY ’24 with the margin standing at 10.6%. Our depreciation for the quarter stood at INR20 crores versus INR18 crores in Q3 of last year. Our finance cost for the quarter remained stable at INR1 crore in Q3 FY ’25.
With the backing of strong cash-flow generated by the company, the other income has increased phenomenally by 92.9% year-over-year. We saw a decrease in our tax from INR28 crores last year to INR23 crores in Q3 FY ’25. Reason being, we obtained tax relative certificate in Singapore, which enables the exumption of income in Singapore, resulting in a tax saving of INR5 crores. This factor has contributed to the improvement of net profit margin by 152 bps and the absolute value standing at INR64 crores. The net profit margin stood at 7.1%. Now for the nine months performance. Revenue grew by 20% and stood at INR2,8 crores as against INR2,338 crores. EBITDA margin saw an improvement of 145 basis-points and stood at INR297 crores. Net profit was at INR192 crores as against INR120 crores, a growth of 60% year-on-year.
With this, we conclude the presentation and open the floor for further discussion. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press R&1 on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press R&2. Participants are requested to use answers while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Vinamra Hirawat from JM Financial. Please go-ahead.
Vinamra Hirawat
Hi, sir, am I audible?
Sunil Dodla
Yes, sir.
Vinamra Hirawat
So, sir, congrats on a good set of numbers. My first question is a little bit on the quick commerce side. My team and I checked for dairy products in the South region, you know, Hyderabad, Chennai and we checked around Blinkit, and Zepto. And what we saw was is only present in Zepto and, while our competitors like Heritage, and the co-ops are present throughout the channels. So sir, I wanted to know quick commerce as a percentage of your sales, is there a push to be present across quick commerce platforms? And when can we expect some progress on-sales through quick commerce? Because you know the way it’s growing and eating up share from general trade, this has to be a notable channel for us going-forward.
Sunil Dodla
See, quick commerce, we are present and we are experimenting with Hyderabad and we have also extended to other towns in Andhra and, for example, places like and other places where we are stronger. We are taking it and we will be expanding to all other places, but we are also being very cautious in terms of — because most of a couple of them are a lot of the dark stores, but we also have to make sure that supplies are proper, the coal chains are maintained well and there are no other issues from our end as well as their end. So I think it’s only a shorter time before we go there. But as a percentage, I think for all of us for us put together, it is still a small percentage of overall. It’s still 0.5% of our revenues. I think in the days to come, it will grow, but we’ll also have to keep both the channels growing. So all the channels will be there. We should also be present in all the channels.
Vinamra Hirawat
Okay. And where do you see this 0.5% of sales right now getting to —
Sunil Dodla
In the short-term, it will be still moving by another 0.5%, 1.5%, 2% because there is still a good amount of delivery in the old-school where milk delivery is made at-home, people are still being able to deliver, a lot more of the app-based deliveries are coming in and lot of them are using products. So multi-chain quick commerce will move along with modern trade as and others will also come. I think this will move-in the 1% to 2% ranges over the short-term.
Murali Mohan Raju
Yeah, yeah. We are expecting roughly up to INR100 crores revenue this year this financial year modern trade. Yeah, modern trade and e-commerce or.
Sunil Dodla
Modern trade and good commerce put together.
Murali Mohan Raju
No, we are expecting roughly about INR100 crores. So last year, not even a 50% of that.
Vinamra Hirawat
You sir, sorry, last year not even INR50 crore was booked in quick commerce and modern Trade.
Sunil Dodla
Less than that. Less than that. And this year we are expecting roughly about INR100 crores.
Vinamra Hirawat
Okay, sir. Sir, my next question is also on the distribution side. Sir, what percentage of our sales come from Dodla? And I see that you have a pretty strong growth in Dodla for this quarter. What are the number of Dosa are we expect over the next two years and do we have higher margins selling in our own dollars?
Sunil Dodla
So our collars, our numbers are — we try to keep our ERP numbers, I think are 657. We are not concentrating surely on a blind number growth, but also to make sure that there are profitable number growth that we do. Our will be around the second in terms of margins coming after our distributor network, our network comes second in terms of realization because we also are trying to do — it’s a company-owned and franchisee operated kind of a model. So we’re trying to keep it with the long-term view of maintaining more hygiene standards and making sure that we can do a little more cross-selling. So that’s why it’s number two, but that’s one of the tools that we use to go-to-market. Wherever if you’re finding other channels of difficulty or we need to create our own, we start using our DRCs and I think they should grow in another 2%, 3% over a period of time.
Vinamra Hirawat
So you said 2%, 3% growth a year in a number of Udulla?
Sunil Dodla
Yeah. The number, we will not be too because we want to make them profitable, but as a percentage of growth, the sales will grow by at least 2%, 3%.
Vinamra Hirawat
Got it. Got it. Sir, if I can just fit one more question in. You are still leaving our other income this quarter, why are your EBITDA margins lower year-on-year since we have Africa, Oga Feed and VAP, which is notably higher percentage of our sales in Q3 of F ’25 versus Q3 of FY ’24.
Sunil Dodla
So I’ll just give you broadly the explanation and will give you more specifically the number. If I look at my absolute number, actually it has grown from INR64 crores on Q3 ’24 to INR76 crores on the absolute number we have grown. The reason was as a percentage of our showing, let’s say, from an 8.68 to 8.48 is fundamentally because Africa, where we started Kenya, which gave us a 40,000 liters of market, which is a new market, we’ve got volume, but we still didn’t get the margin because it was also a tougher the summer. So procurement prices didn’t go down as expected, which have been corrected now. So that is why you will see that percentage drop from 8.68 to 8.48, but as an absolute number, it grew from INR64.8 crores to INR76.4 crores.
Murali Mohan Raju
Apart from that, last quarter we don’t have a bulk sale. This quarter we have a bulk sale of INR72 crores, which also of the revenue, but might not have margin. As a percentage of revenue margin.
Vinamra Hirawat
Okay. So you’re saying Y-o-Y compared to 3Q of last year was 3Q of this year. The only reason your margins are down is because of Kenya not having the margins required and higher bulk sales.
Murali Mohan Raju
Yeah. Yeah. And also addition of depreciation, because when you’re calculating EBIT, the depreciation also is it because of the Kenya plant run full-year?
Vinamra Hirawat
Yeah. I’m looking at — I’m looking at the EBITDA margins anyway. So the come on that. But okay, so thank you so much. I’ll come back-in the queue for the questions.
BVK Reddy
Correct.
Vinamra Hirawat
Thank you.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Aditya [Phonetic] from Securities Investment Management. Please go-ahead.
Aditya
Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of results. Sir, first was, what is the average procurement price and realization price per liter this quarter?
Sunil Dodla
Only procurement it or you want anything else which we can procurement? Procurement, only procurement price will give you.
Murali Mohan Raju
If the procurement price for this quarter Q3 is 35.62%.
Aditya
Okay. And realization?
Murali Mohan Raju
And realization is 62.17, including the bulk. If you exclude the bulk sales price, it is INR58.06.
Aditya
Understood. And what is the current sales amount into key terms?
Murali Mohan Raju
Sales amount. Gross sales amount is basically —
Sunil Dodla
For the quarter or for the nine months —
Aditya
For the quarter-on-quarter.
Murali Mohan Raju
Gross profit is not gross revenue. Revenue, INR9.1 crores.
Aditya
No, sir, I was asking sales in rupee terms.
Sunil Dodla
I didn’t get the question on this. Could you repeat it again?
Aditya
Current seeds in rupee terms, sorry.
Murali Mohan Raju
Sales, yeah, one-man. Okay. Corporate consolidated, the revenue was so INR159 crores for this quarter FY ’25.
Aditya
Understood. Understood. Now sir, my question is on group. Now if I look at your India business and if I exclude the bulk side sales, your India business is growing in low-single digits for the last 3/4. So if you could just explain what is leading to such lower-growth and how are we looking for next year in terms of growth?
Sunil Dodla
So basically lower-growth was on earlier, like we said, the number of packets and volume reduction that had happened was the reason why the lower-growth numbers were there in terms of liquid milk and it was generally also I think as higher price went in a bit of a consumption had dropped, but we are seeing good offtake starting off from Jan and the summer months coming in. So we’re confident that these growth numbers will come back to the regular 8% to 10% of volume growth.
Aditya
Understood. And now if I look at your sales as well, now if I exclude your cord and bulfide, other vap that is panny —
Sunil Dodla
That is other vap is basically flavored milks buttermilk and other products ice creams like.
Operator
So Mr Aditya’s line has dropped. One moment please. May I request that we move to the next participant, sir. The line from Mr drop. We move to the next question that comes from the line of Nandita from Marcellus Investment Managers. Please go-ahead.
Nandita Rajhansa
Thank you. First of all, congratulations on an excellent set of numbers, sir. So Mike, I have a couple of questions. First of all, I wanted to understand that in the standalone results, we can see that the tax-rate has actually gone down to 19.9% from last quarter or where it was 25.3%. So the reason for that, I wanted to understand. And secondly, the capex in Maharashtra that you have recently-announced of INR280 crores. So I wanted to understand the strategy, the idea behind what exactly is going to come up under that capex in Maharashtra, what sort of greenfield project are you looking at? And in terms of the payment — I mean, in terms of funding that capex, how much of the net cash today that you have on your balance sheet is going to be used and how much of debt is going to be taken. If you can just clarify these things.
Sunil Dodla
And I’ll explain the capex part. Will explain the operation part and will explain the tax part of it. So the capex that we are looking at, we can actually do the entire thing to our internal accruals that we have, but we will be looking at debt because we have certain advantages of if the government is willing to give us an interest and if we’re able to get some benefits from the government side is the reason why we will be taking the debt and using not our internal accruals and making it as an overall more efficient return on the capital that we are deploying. So that is the reason why we look at debt. Otherwise, we will have ample capital of our own to deploy it. And if we need to be, we will be it as 100% equity, although we know it’s a little more on the expensive side. I think operationally, it is making sense that our returns are there between five years or six years is where we look at our discounted cash flows wise to be making our money back even with 100% equity.
So subject to we getting any benefits, we will go for debt. If we’re not getting any benefits, we will go with our own cash. BVK will explain the operations of what we are looking-forward with Maharashtra.
BVK Reddy
Yeah. Since couple of years, we have already started procurement from Maharashtra. Right now, we are collecting 2.3 lakhs average procurement for Maharashtra, the solar surrounding area. And we have already identified land acquired. Now already civil work has been started and we are expecting by end of ’26, so we will be able to commence our plant. By the time we are adding another couple of chicken centers this financial year also, by the time our seed plant comes for commencement, so we at least we will have 50% milk required for that too. So we are looking for 1 million liter capacity plant. So by end of ’26, we were able to collect 5 lakh liters milk per day from the rolling area. So that is our plan matter. With regard to the tax, definitely please go-ahead. Please go-ahead.
Murali Mohan Raju
Okay. With regard to the tax, ma’am, in Q3 of last year, we have declared a dividend of around INR34 crores. At that time, we don’t have a tax resident certificate. So we ended-up paying 15% in Africa as well as 17% that has resulted into almost 30% of the tax. But as the dividend was squared up because it’s the transaction, you have a higher tax amount. And this quarter, we have declared a dividend, but actually we have only 15% we have to pay because we got the tax business that we get. That’s why our 17% of benefit was there. Apart from that, why it is lower than our tax-effective rate of 26% to 27% is because earlier whatever the cash balances we have on that, we have to create a deferred tax amount. But because we already created a deferred tax at that end, now because the money has moved in here that we have reversed the deferred tax. That’s why the tax amount effectively has come down. That was the reason.
Nandita Rajhansa
Sir, just one follow-up question, Mr Reddy on what you said. So I wanted to understand what part of Maharashtra are you looking at and has the land — I mean, obviously, if you’re saying that FY ’26 and you’re going to commence. So what — what area of Maharashtra are you looking at and what are the operational — other operational things that you’re seeing because is typically cooperative heavy. So I wanted to understand your idea strategy behind why set-up a plant in Maharashtra.
BVK Reddy
So Maharashtra, see, roughly about Maharashtra, if you take might have not roughly INR2 crores milk is available in Maharashtra, only 50 lakhs milk see organized baggies are collecting. So we have ample milk in Maharashtra, especially in Solapur area. And see we identified our land closer to Solar Pur, 25 kilometers away from Solar Power and now we will be concentrating around 200 kilometers radius. So to these 200 kilometers radius itself, we have enough potential to collect 10 lakh liters of milk. So that is a land there.
Sunil Dodla
And Nanita, also once we start going ahead with this 10 lakh liters, this is going to be in lieue of if we consider our growth at the baselines of where we are and what we need to add mill. We will also be from other states of between Andhra, Tamalad or Karnataka and we’ll make Maharashtra also a reasonably large part of our overall procurement network. And for us, it is also advantages to our operating plants. I think VVK can tell you that it’s close to our Hyderabad plant, but you already know what milk what we are collecting from Maharashtra, we have that condensing and getting to Hyderabad. So Hyderabad is also closer to only 275 kilometers, 300 kilometers from our existing location. And also it is very close to our Karnataka plant also. So whenever milk is required to Hyderabad and Karnataka. So milk can be transported to Hyderabad and Karnataka, our plant. So these are the main reasons why we have set-up a plant in Solapur.
Nandita Rajhansa
Fantastic. All right. Thank you so much.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Pratik Kothari from Unique PMS. Please go-ahead.
Pratik Kothari
Yes, hi, good morning. Sir, just one question. I mean, our thought process on, I mean, how do we think about doing this bulk sale and what is this driven by? And just one observation, I mean see in-quarter two and quarter three, both when you did some large bulk sale, we are still able to maintain our gross margins and operating margins on the standalone level. So I mean, how do we even achieve that, so thank you.
Sunil Dodla
So basically, I’ll give you the broader thing in saying regarding margins, will explain regarding bulk sale volume and what is the price and what the realizations are. But Pratik, broadly we are not — putting up this thing to enter into the ingredient sale per se. We are now creating a lot more of brand awareness and getting into selling gee as a product and creating a lot more market. This is — the bulk sale that we are doing is only a sort of an intermediary requirement when we are not able to match procurement and sales. Like I’ve been saying earlier, overall, when we look at our KG fat and KG SNF that we require to what we are going to be selling as a balancing, we will end-up with maybe earlier we used to-end up by erroring on the side of caution and being a net buyer.
Now we are doing it saying that we will be more aggressive and we’ll end-up being a net seller. So selling bulk quantities that we are looking at and compare with the market is many small, even a couple of dealers or traders itself will be able to wipe out whatever we hold as our inventories because even in the worst-case scenario, we can look at it to being 10,000 tons or of milk powder, which is a very small quantity in the overall scheme of markets that are available within India and the rest of the world. If this is always more or less to take care of our consumer requirement, but we will not have any shortage and we will move from an era of not having enough milk and using all kinds of buying from third-parties, we will be only dependent on our milk and will not be dependent on third-parties.
Regarding your second part of the questions of maintaining the world.
Murali Mohan Raju
So basically, in this nine-month period, we have sold almost. Yeah, total in this — for nine months, we have sold almost INR274 crores of commodity, but whereas in the beginning of the year, we have around INR299 crores, which was — we have INR170 crores. We already liquidated, okay. That’s whatever the provision we made also most of the amount we have required it, only there is a INR10 crores, which we are mark-to-market is there. And quarter-on-quarter also, our prices are increasing and we are doing a bulk sales. So like Saar said that because of net selling, it is always beneficial that we maintain the consistency across the.
Pratik Kothari
All right. So just to confirm, this is, I mean timing mismatch. I mean we are kind of getting our procurement uptick very quickly and until we get our sales done, I mean we’ll see this from a time-to-time basis.
Sunil Dodla
Yeah. So that’s what this is more a balancing thing that will happen and we don’t want to be on the wrong side of not having product with us.
Pratik Kothari
Correct, correct. Great. No, thank you and all the best.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Anushka Chitnis with Arihant Capital. Please go-ahead.
Anushka Chitnis
Thank you for the opportunity. I just have a couple of questions. I would like to know about the fat sales. How much of this quarter was attributable to fat? And also, did you see any traction across your sweets portfolio given the festive season?
Sunil Dodla
Will give you the specific number. The sweet portfolio for us, although the numbers will be in terms of half a tonne to 600 kilos a day of average sales. In the overall, it’s still a small portion of our portfolio because we now sell it only through a few retail outlets and a few areas of — those are the plant — the plant areas because we want to keep the freshness of the suite going. Fat sales have been good this year.
Murali Mohan Raju
This quarter we have done around INR65 crores. Last year is at the same quarter, we have done around INR12 crores only. But if you talk about last previous quarter of this, it is INR147 crores. And if you see on the nine-month period, last Nine-Month period, it is INR33 crores and now we are at INR254 crores.
Anushka Chitnis
Got it. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Resha Mehta from GreenEdge Wealth. Please go-ahead.
Resha Mehta
Yeah congrats on a very good performance. So the first question is, you know, on the acquisition side, right? So because we are doing a big CapEx in Maharashtra, would you say that would higher our acquisition ambitions, if any? So for example, your peer in South has acquired a company in East and historically even we have done some small, small plant acquisitions in the South over the period of last several years. So just wanted to understand this Maharashtra is a big CapEx. So would that kind of prohibit us from getting into some kind of a big acquisition for geographic expansion or any other such objective.
Sunil Dodla
So thank you, Reshan, for about giving a compliment about our results. But Maharashtra will not restrict our acquisition ambitions. We will continue to do both. Maharashtra is like we have been doing all-the-time, we’ve always grown with the mixture of acquisitions and greenfields. Maharashtra was online plan for us from the beginning I’ve been — I think we’ve also informed earlier. We — maybe the delays can be three to six months, but in terms of noiser that we take. But in terms of opportunity, if we do find an opportunity which we think matches our performance requirements or our price criteria, we will still look-forward for acquisitions because we still are on a very healthy cash — cash flows, which we have with us. Maharashtra will be a project which extends over 18 months and our future accruals can be used for Maharashtra. We can still have our own cash for our working capital requirements, plus we will have money for expansion also. So it’s only a question of finding the right opportunity.
Resha Mehta
Got it. And on the numbers that you all had provided for the procurement price 35.6 and realization is 58.1 for this quarter, was that for the standalone or the consol? Consolute.
Sunil Dodla
It was for the consol.
Resha Mehta
Sorry, this was the consol.
Sunil Dodla
Consol.
Resha Mehta
Okay. Okay. All right. And can you mention that for the standalone as well, the procurement price of the and the selling price?
Murali Mohan Raju
Yeah, sure. The procurement price for this quarter of standalone is 36.13 and 36.13 and selling price will be 62.82.
Sunil Dodla
62.82 is including the fact minus that it would be minus that will be 58.06.
Resha Mehta
Got it. And how — so you did — you mentioned in your opening remarks that since we are entering the lean size — lean season, milk prices have started inching up. So any flavor you can provide in terms of what is the kind of inflation that we are seeing in the milk prices and any stress at the farmer level, if any? And also in-line with this milk price inflation that we are seeing or anticipating further, what are the kind of price hikes that we can take? Would it be fully covering up for the inflation that we are seeing?
BVK Reddy
Yeah. Yes, Madam. See the milk prices, we are expecting INR1 to INR2 price hike already INR1 already some areas, it has already gone up and further we are expecting one more rupee also will go up in the month of March and April. So further already selling price also corrections have already started. So one round already we have the — already from tomorrow day-after onwards we are doing in and Andra. In some parts of Tarnataka also, we have already initiated. So Simon selling price also we are picking-up.
Resha Mehta
And this is in-line with what your peers have also been doing?
BVK Reddy
Yes, yes, ma’am.
Resha Mehta
Okay. On the fat products, right? So can you give a breakup of — so I understand INR72 crores was a bulk sale. Can you give a breakup of that between butter SMPG?
Sunil Dodla
Or is only PAT matters not considering S&P also. It was only fat. In that we can give the difference between.
Murali Mohan Raju
SMP was around INR32 crores ma’am and butter is around INR40 crores and gee is around INR25 crores for this quarter.
Resha Mehta
Okay. And so ghee is something that is completely B2C. Is that understanding right?
Murali Mohan Raju
Is not — is B2C is made of butter and SMB is B2B.
Resha Mehta
Correct. And what would be the kind of EBITDA margins that we make on butter SMT, which are fat products basically? And then commodity matter which changes.
Sunil Dodla
I think three months ago, it was a breakeven level of pricing that we have taken. Currently, it has moved into 6% or 7% kind of EBITDA margins. Consumer Gee can go up to 8% to 8%, 9% EBITDA margins, depending on the channel, but average should be around 8%.
Murali Mohan Raju
Okay. So Gee saying despite such a low-base, we are already doing around 8%, 9% kind of margins. And what these margins, 8%, 9%, what you’re seeing would hold true for the nine-month period for gee.
Sunil Dodla
Not for the nine-month period, current-period because again it is of predominantly gee prices fluctuate more than like milk prices are almost stable and we only keep taking a hike now very rarely do we go down, but gee prices go in tandem with the butter prices that are available. Even consumer gee, if butter prices really crashed and the gee prices come down, the butter prices go up, consumer prices of gee also go up.
BVK Reddy
But 3rd-quarter being a festive season in 3rd-quarter, we got a good realization in gee. And see now also the trend is maintaining, it is in a higher side. If you see in an overall year, maybe gee overall entire year 12 months, we will be in a plus side only, not in a minus side.
Resha Mehta
Okay. So if we were to think about this more from a mid to long-term standpoint, right? So where do you see your he margins on an average, like for the full-year considering the cyclicality, seasonality, all those factors put in together and considering that now we are going to be net sellers and not net buyers, right?
Sunil Dodla
So it should be around 8% to 10% number because once you get more of a brand, we were there at a while and then we had shortage of products, therefore, we had to withdraw from markets like Gujarat and certain areas. But once you build yourself a brand, any good-quality G versus any G, you will find a wide range of pricing, right? There will be almost a consumer end of at least INR50 to INR60 change, that means a 10% to 15% variation in price from a brand to brand. I think we will be at that higher-end of the brand pricing and we’ll get our brand value going and we should maintain 8% to 10% kind of margins.
Resha Mehta
So currently, when you say we are being able to charge a premium, so let’s say versus you know, the cooperatives or the somebody like a heritage, etc., how much premium would our GB commanding or would it be at par?
Sunil Dodla
No, we’ll all be at par. So most of them are already commanding the premium in the markets when you look at it comparative. We have a lot of standalone brands of GE, which are price lower unlike the organized dairy guys. So most of the dairy guys will become more premiumized gee and the standalone people who buy butter from us and then convert it to gee will be the lower pricing ones.
Resha Mehta
Got it. And what was the other income of close to INR30 crores in the standalone business? That’s a sharp job.
Murali Mohan Raju
No. Answer, but it’s majority of our — basically other income is basically from the investments we made it on that we have accrued made of, basically mutual fund because around INR250 crores of cash profits and liquidation of INR170 crores, which was invested in the mutual fund. So basically that was resulting. We invest only in the debt mutual fund.
Sunil Dodla
And compared to previous year, which was around INR18 crores INR19 crores. This year it is 25 crore 25%.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Okay, sure.
Murali Mohan Raju
And if you see the standalone madam, there is a dividend income is there INR18 crores. But if you’re talking about consolidated, it is knocked off, it is only the interest income, what we got it. And apart from that, there is a minor income we got it from the milk cans and all those things, those are smaller. Those are the smaller amounts which we get it.
Resha Mehta
Right. And this time the growth has been quite strong even in the India standalone dairy business, if I were to exclude the bulk fat revenues also, unlike the previous quarter. So would you attribute this revenue growth to some specific geography, specific region or have you seen this is a secular trend across the territories that you operate in? Any color here that you can give in terms of geographies basically a secular trend, it’s all across more than volume also, the value also has increased in the terms of the pricing which had come earlier. So you’re seeing an impact of both.
Sunil Dodla
And it’s secular, it’s all across.
Resha Mehta
Right. And just lastly, on this — the fat sale, right? So in Q3 of — so when actually did we start you know, recording fat sales since which quarter would that be from Q1 of this financial year or was it even in last financial year?
Sunil Dodla
Mostly was the current year, current year.
BVK Reddy
Sales was only from the current year. Accumulation of the stand we have done in Q3 of last year, but Q3, Q4, we have not done any prices of only we started selling it.
Resha Mehta
Sorry, I missed that. So you’re saying in Q3 FY ’24 and Q4 FY ’24, we did not have any fat sale — bulk sale, right?
Sunil Dodla
No bulk. We don’t have bulk sale.
Resha Mehta
So it was only since Q1 that we have started this Q1 of this financial year.
Sunil Dodla
Yes, madam.
Resha Mehta
And can you help me with the number for Butto S&P and for Q1 FY ’25, if you have it handy or maybe I can otherwise just reach-out to you.
Sunil Dodla
We can reach-out to us, man, otherwise we want to have a Q1 of butter sale FY.
Murali Mohan Raju
FY ’25 FY ’25 butter sale was basically value-wise INR194 cros mega and SMP was INR80 crores. That is for the year. That is for the year.
Sunil Dodla
You wanted Q3 — I don’t have Q1 ready, we have Q3 and quarter-on-quarter and to the.
Resha Mehta
And the for the line —
Operator
Sorry to interrupt ma’am. May we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions. There are several participants waiting. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question comes from the line of Aejas Lakhani from Unifi. Please go-ahead. Go-ahead. Aejas, may I request you to use your handset. You are not audible, sir.
Aejas Lakhani
Is this better?
Operator
Yes. Yes, please.
Aejas Lakhani
Yeah. Hi, team, congratulations on excellent execution as always. MR. Doda, could you just — I’m looking for a more slightly zoomed out sort of view on how the trend for FY ’26 will pan-out, especially given that in ’22, we saw fairly stable year, ’23 was an off year with procurement prices rising, we couldn’t pass-through all of them. ’24 was a fairly more stabilized year ’25 has been what it is. It’s been a good year. How do you — given the cyclicality of this industry to a certain extent, how do you see the cycle playing out for procurement prices as well as your ability to pass-through given that you’ve been able to do this consistently over so many quarters, do you still see that trend continuing?
Sunil Dodla
Thank you so much, Mr Akan. Yes, what will happen is it is going to be that what we call as food inflation will continue to be there and we will be doing both the procurement and passing it on to the customers is what it will happen. It only depends on the quantum. I don’t think we’ll see such a steep increase like we saw in the previous years. It will be more a steady-state increase, maybe INR2, INR3 of going up to the farmer and to the consumer kind of a scenario and we will be able to pass that on as we go-forward. It is more also that the industry is sort of matured and become more uniform in nature, the differences between the cooperatives, the private sector and all that are also being evened out.
So therefore, we will see that equal passing of prices whenever there is a price — inflationary that the farmers get that also pass to the consumer and we will maintain this kind of steady-state margin. The advantage that we have is now because we have three lines of revenue coming in from India operations, Africa and with the cattle feed, I think between the three, we will be able to maintain this healthy state of growth and margins even for a few more years to come. And like we had announced, if you take our Maharashtra project coming online. I think we are pretty much organized for the next few years, at least in the short-term to maintain good growth rates and bottom-line.
Aejas Lakhani
Got it, sir. That’s very clear. And sir, just two more things. I think in your opening remarks, spoke about something about the Singapore entity. So can you help me bridge my understanding that I thought that the cash flows from Africa sit to the Singapore entity and we don’t repatriate them back because of taxation-related matters. So is there any change on that?
Sunil Dodla
No, we actually we don’t get them because of the taxation-related matters. So what happened was will give you the specifics. Earlier when Singapore government had made — said that if it was only you had an address, you had a local director, they would give us a tax residency certificate, which means that I would get the credit for whatever tax that I paid-in Africa when I to Singapore. In the middle, they changed that to saying you have to be a sort of a little more of an operating entity where you must-have senior management personnel and other such things, which we have sort of complied with and they have given us a tax residency certificate wherein when the money that is repartrated from Africa comes to Singapore, we get the benefit of getting the money from Singapore. We don’t pay the tax in Singapore for what has already been paid-in Africa.
We rebartrate that money into India whenever we are doing a dividend or dividend policy because I think it is more kind of effective for us to do it. Will explain the effectiveness of getting the dividend from Africa to India and getting to Indian shareholders.
BVK Reddy
Yeah, basically when we are talking about Africa money bringing to Singapore, there is a double was made earlier, 15% of the tax on the 85%. Again, when we are permitted to Singapore 17%, effectively it is coming 30%. Earlier, we don’t have a tax certificate. So after that, we got the certificate for ’23, ’24 and now we got even for ’25. So based on that, we have remitted back the money again this year, again another INR34 crores, okay? That’s why. So effectively our tax will be only 15%. Secondly, whatever the money we are getting into Singapore, like last year, whatever we got the money out of that around INR18 crores, we already declared as a dividend in India. So based on our dividend planning and based on the requirement in India, so we will either move on to the India or we will hold it at the Singapore. The idea of the company was to minimize the cash balances to be maintain in Africa. That was the reason.
Aejas Lakhani
Yeah. Okay. So that was a lot of data given to me at a very rapid space, so my ability to absorb was a little lower. But what I’m understanding that you’re seeing is you figured out the taxation structure from Africa, whatever pool you can repatriate back to India at a 30% effective tax-rate and you’re trying to minimize the capital that you hold in Singapore as much as possible and repatriate it back to India. Is that broad understanding correct?
Murali Mohan Raju
Yes. Absolutely.
Aejas Lakhani
Yeah. Okay. Okay. And probably I’ll get into the semantics of it in a one-on-one call. And sir, lastly, I just want to understand from the team that’s also basically, you know, as a company, you guys are super efficient. So your strategy around Maharashtra is in close proximities to your centers in Telangana and the region. So you you’re basically trying to make efficient the distribution route which is already being enforced and used and using that as a playbook to build Maharashtra from that area and then go about. Is that correct?
Sunil Dodla
What will happen is,, sir, we will cater to our — let’s say, Maharashtra, if we’re looking at East and West, Maharashtra will now push more milk whenever it’s required to the eastern market growth that we are having, which is our Hyderabad, North Karnataka and South requirements and also gives us the establishment of going westward into Maharashtra. We’ll start with the districts and establish there and move forward. So it will be a two-way thing which will be there. It will also act as a stabilizing for milk requirement for our existing markets and for growth into.
Aejas Lakhani
Got it. And sir, given that you’re disbursed in fairly several regions now, what is the health of the cooperators in each of these? These because from time-to-time when the health of the cooperators is weaker, the farmer switches over to us and because of our great factors of paying them on-time in their accounts, et-cetera, you get a better stickiness from a collection standpoint. So I just want to understand what is the health of the cooperators in that light?
Sunil Dodla
Yeah, that I will answer this. See, especially if you take Telangana, so Telangana is a very poor, so they are not able to see — make a payment to the farmers and they are due almost a couple of months. So it is very shabby, especially in Telangana. And Telangan and, see, they are net biased through the year. No, see they don’t have surplus milk. And Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu also cooperatives are not doing well. They are also running late by one or two months. They are not very efficient. Tamil also is the same problem. Karnataka, they were paying no subsidy since 10 years 10 to 15 years from 2004 onwards. But they are also now running late almost seven, eight months.
The core due is their portion of money they are paying promptly, but the government what they promised INR5 per liter that they are not creating to the farmer account. So it is running late. So co-produce now it is very difficult is as such. So maintain a consistency payment, promptly payment they are not making it all. And if you see come to Maharashtra,, pork due dairies are very weak. They are smaller, all very small. So majority delight or Govind, Parag Dairy, these are the major dairies.
Aejas Lakhani
Understood, sir. And so sir, is it just lastly, is it fair to assume that you’re doing an expansion of the number of farmers where you’re collecting milk by basically taking share from the cooperators in all the geographies that you are present today?
Murali Mohan Raju
Not only the cooperative, but see the overall, because each and every village, there are African people are competing over maybe the efficient you know the farmer will attract, name the service and a payment, prompt payment. So to be more specific to Mr it would be that whoever is not operating well in a certain area will be the loser. In hierarchy and wise and the better operator starts to get more share.
Aejas Lakhani
I noted, sir, and wish you the best for execution ’26. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shaurya Punyani with Arjav Partners. Please go ahead.
Shaurya Punyani
Hello, I’m audible?
Operator
Yes, sir. Please go-ahead.
Shaurya Punyani
Sir, just a clarification that new plant in Maharashtra, is it active by end of FY ’27 or December or let’s assume that it would be 27 March. Between 26 December to 27 March is where it will be operation. March ’27, okay. And sir, could you kind of give a broad view as to what kind of overall topline growth we are expecting in ’26 and ’27?
Sunil Dodla
I think we will try to maintain this actual CAGR growth that we’ve been promising as 10% by volume and 15% by revenue. Maybe that might vary in terms of the volume might be little less or little more and the revenues might be 1% here and there, but the 10% and 15% is what we’ll be looking at.
Shaurya Punyani
Okay, thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ms, does that answer your questions?
Shaurya Punyani
Yeah.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sameer Gupta from India Infoline. Please go-ahead.
Sameer Gupta
Hi, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Sir, a little bit more on the INR280 crore capex that you plan to do. This is 1 million capacity is what I understand. Does it include only liquid milk at this point or do you plan to add value-added products like curd and any other that you are thinking?
BVK Reddy
Yeah. See, there we are putting up a powder plant that is 60 tonne 60 tonnes per day capacity. So that 60 tonne capacity powder plants itself will take-away almost requirement of milk is 7.5 lakhs. And balance you know, see, we are also planning liquid milk as well as well as your current and all other products also. That should be another 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh liters that will be there for the consumer B2C.
Sameer Gupta
And this would be in the INR280 crore capex, everything. They don’t plan to add like later.
BVK Reddy
Yes. No, this will be in the INR280 crores capex, including liquid milk and the powder. The other things that we’ll be planning to add later can be, can be others also as per the requirement? That’s for the requirement.
Sameer Gupta
And what is the potential revenue that this plant alone can generate, let’s say, assuming an optimum capacity utilization. I understand there is a seasonality in the business, but in your estimate, whatever optimum capacity utilization a plant reaches, the revenue potential from this plant.
Sunil Dodla
So normally now 1 lakh liter of milk giving roughly about INR175 crores to INR200 crores top-line. So once it becomes so 100%, it will add into INR2,000 crores revenue top-line.
Sameer Gupta
So that’s asset turn of around six, seven times. Just a bookkeeping question, sir. Procurement mix between cow and buffalo milk for you?
BVK Reddy
Mostly it is a milk. 99% Maharashtra is milk milk. No, no, no.
Sunil Dodla
Buffalo milk will hardly be 21%, 5%. The rest is all.
Sameer Gupta
For your company, I’m asking, not just for Maharashtra.
Sunil Dodla
For company, company also.
Sameer Gupta
Okay. 95% is cow milk. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. That’s all from me.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Srishti with Monarch AIF. Please go-ahead.
Srishti Jain
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, with respect to Africa, how do we see growth panning out now that you’ve touched quarterly run-rate of about INR100 crores? What is the utilization level there and what kind of margins are we doing there currently?,
Sunil Dodla
See this year we have done nine months see our volume growth roughly about so 60% volume growth we have done. Last year, say nine months, cumulative, we have done around 1 lakh 10,000 liters. Now we are doing around 1,77,000 liters. In future, I think we can add — in future also in our Kenya plant, we have done only 40% of the capacity utilization. So we have originally planned for 1 lakh liter capacity. Now nine months average is 40,000 liters. So there is a big headroom to go Kenya. And also Uganda also last — compared to last year, these nine months also there also we have grown. So we think we will still have growth of around 50,000, 60,000 liters available with us now.
Srishti Jain
Yes. Understood sense sir, we were facing the margin pressure, right? Do we see that improving?
Sunil Dodla
Our margins in Africa will always maintain this seasonality-wise might they go down or go up, but we will maintain the same margin level, same margin level.
Srishti Jain
Understood, sir. And what are the utilization in the cattery field? And how is the realization trending there?
Sunil Dodla
Cattery field plant, the plant was — which is commenced in coupon plant last April, now we are almost doing 30% of capacity utilization.
Srishti Jain
And how is the realization trending there is trending upwards, right?
Sunil Dodla
Upstrending upwards upward.
Srishti Jain
It continues to be —
Sunil Dodla
Around that 7%, 8% of margin, which is always maintaining or going up as the differential between the commodity price and the selling price?
Srishti Jain
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jayvansh Mehta with Care PMS. Please go-ahead.
Jayvansh Mehta
Am I audible?
Sunil Dodla
Yes, sir.
Jayvansh Mehta
Hello. Yes, sir. Sir, my first question was like we saw in the gross margin on a sequential basis. But so what could be the reason and the driver for the change?
Operator
Could you repeat the question or may we request you to use your handset, sir. Hello. Hello. So may I request you to use your handset, please. In case you’re connected on a Bluetooth device, may we request you to use your handset.
Jayvansh Mehta
And is it clear now, sir?
Operator
Yes, sir. That’s very clear. Thank you, sir. Okay.
Jayvansh Mehta
Sorry for that sir. Sir, my question was basically we saw an inch-up in the gross margin in the latest quarter. So what could be the driver for the sale?
Sunil Dodla
Basically is the pricing that has improved on all the ends of the bulk sales and regular sales also, the prices were there and the product mix also helped us in terms of the overall gross margin improvement.
Jayvansh Mehta
Okay, okay, sir. And sir, what would be the current inventory position and how do we see it going-forward? And did we have any inventory gain in the current quarter?
Sunil Dodla
No, inventory gains, we still have a INR10 crore of NRV provision that we have with us for what we had provided earlier, which I think our consumption I think we are maintaining it for our own requirement now and not much of sale to go-forward because the summer months are coming, I think we still have advantage of the INR10 crores that we have provisioned. All the pricing is doing better than the NRV that we have. I think when it comes to the consumption, we will have the advantage of that revision if we have to do it depending on when we consume.
Murali Mohan Raju
As I said, we have only INR129 crores as a commodity inventory.
Jayvansh Mehta
Okay, okay, sir. And just last question, sir, like recently we saw Amun taking down taking a price cut of around INR1. So what would be our pricing strategy that you said? Can you repeat that please?
Sunil Dodla
So Amul basically had taken-up a price increase and then the price cut BBK will explain it most.
BVK Reddy
Yeah, now see they’ve taken — now they’ve decreased it, but certain areas, but not across India. But here we already saw all competitors now see they’ve already started taking a price hike, including the, including. And the other side, since the procurement price also they are ticking up.
Jayvansh Mehta
Okay, okay, sir. Okay, sir, just one last question one last question, sir. Like how do we see a demand scenario in the industry like going-forward in the coming quarters and for the full-year.
Sunil Dodla
The demand will continue to increase now. So we are again seeing good pullback coming from consumption. We are confident that the demand will play-out as we go-forward.
Jayvansh Mehta
Okay, okay, sir. Thank you so much and all the best for you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Sunil Dodla
Thank you, everyone, for joining us today on this earnings call. We appreciate your interest in Dodla Dairy. If you have any further queries, please contact SGA or Investor Relation Advisor or you can reach-out to us also. Thank you so much.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]