Plenty Food Project Seniors Residence Ahmedabad, India, 2011

Together with the Jain group “Divine Knowledge Society” Plenty Food, an NGO based in the Netherlands, has co-sponsored two SoyCow “M” systems in India.

This one was installed at a Jain seniors’ residence near a village just outside of Ahmedabad. From there milk will also be delivered as a donation to local schools.

Delhi Jaitpur Project (2009)

This enterprise is a cooperative of bi-vocational workers who need to subsidize their income in order to be able to carry out their social work in the community. The machine is currently being run by three men and overseen by Bobby Fudenna of the NGO Jesus Gives Ministries. Their primary consumers are children in local schools run by NGOs, for underprivileged children. The enterprise subsidize this outreach by selling a percentage of their produce to local schools as well as community people interested in the health benefits of the soy milk products. The production workers have learned some important lessons about the critical value of adding flavour. The team is entrepreneurial, adaptive and innovative enough to be able to expand their customer base by providing soy food products that are indigenous to the tastes of Delhiites. They are currently supplying (inexpensively flavoured) strawberry flavour milk to a school in Delhi. They also discovered that by calling the soy milk India Power Milk, they avoided the comparisons between Soy milk and Cow's milk.

The VitaGoat for this project was co-funded by Jesus Gives Ministries (USA) and the World Bank Development Marketplace.

Punjabi Project (2009) Operated by Dusty Sandals

The Punjabi culture is remarkably different than that of Delhi and the residents are much more open to the use of Soy foods. Charanjit (director of Dusty Sandals Vitagoat project) was very excited to name the product Punjabi Power Milk and the name inspired pride among the locals when I mentioned it. Dusty Sandals has a high quality production area. It was built specifically for the VitaGoats and has a large dry area, a clean production area, chimney vents, plumbing and a sink area. There are two machines set up to serve the high demand for the soy milk products. Charanjit uses the machines to supply local schools and orphanages as well as commercial markets. There is a big demand here for health food supplements and the Soy milk is marketed to the young men who are eager for food supplements to help them with body building, a popular past time in Punjab. Dusty Sandals plans uses the profits from this venture to subsidize their school, which has a student body of 200 children with plenty of space for expansion.

The two VitaGoats for this project was co-funded by Dusty Sandals (Alberta, Canada) and the World Bank Development Marketplace.

Malnutrition Matters BISWA Soymilk Project in Orissa

Funded by the World Bank Development Marketplace

This project, funded in 2007 by the World Bank, has supplied 15 VitaGoat systems, as well as one field-trial fruit and vegetable dryer, deployed in rural villages, run primarily by women's self-help groups (SHGs). The first 8 VitaGoats were installed in rural Orissa, near Sambalpur. 75% of the capital cost of this equipment was financed with 'mini-credit' from the micro-finance arm of BISWA, the local partner NGO in the proposal. Each VitaGoat is providing part of a midday meal for 700-800 students.

Soymilk produced with the VitaGoats, fortified by additional micro-nutrients, provides nutrition supplementation to 6,000 poor children in rural and village schools. The project was developed over a two-year period, ending in December 2009. With a very modest government subsidy (midday-meal program) for the soymilk delivered by bicycle to the schools, the projects are run on a sustainable basis by women's self help groups (SHG's) in micro-enterprises that provide employment and income to the workers.

The project is a major extension of the earlier pilot program in Orissa, India, supported by Child Haven International, with funding by Donner Canadian Foundation.

Seven other VitaGoat systems have been installed with other partners in India, including Seva Mandir (Udaipur, Rajasthan) and Dusty Sandals (Punjab). The total number of continuing beneficiaries of this project is over 8,000.

Child Haven International Donner Canadian Foundation
VitaGoat Project - India

Malnutrition Matters, with sponsorship from Child Haven International and funding from the Donner Foundation Canada, is continuing a multi-phase project begun in India in 2005, which started with a technology transfer and several VitaGoat pilot sites.

Project Overview: The technology transfer for manufacturing of the VitaGoat was completed in late 2005. Since then, over 100 systems have been manufactured and shipped by SSP Unit 5 (formerly G.D. Machines) in India, including 20 systems installed in India. The placement of the three VitaGoat pilot systems is as follows: one at the Adhyatma Sadhna Kendra Ashram in Delhi, the second in the rural village of Antapali in Orissa, via the NGO Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency (BISWA). The third VitaGoat is being installed in August 2007 in the village of Banki (near Cuttack in Orissa), in cooperation with the NGO BAAHKP. The second phase of the project in India, funded by Donner Foundation Canada, under the auspices of Child Haven International, saw the installation of 2 more VitaGoats: one with Naandi Foundation in Hyderabad and one in the Mae La Oon refugee camp in Thailand. The second phase also succeeded in facilitating the technology transfer of the SolarFlex Fruit and Vegetable Dryer to SSP in India. The third phase, now underway, has seen the installation of one VitaGoat system in Patna, Bihar and one in the Mae Sot refugee camp in Thailand. The third and final system will be installed early in 2010.