Sod turned for $150M Amaya milk plant in Region Five

From left are G-Invest CEO Peter Ramsaroop, Canada’s High Commissioner to Guyana Mark Berman, Amaya Milk Company founder Omkaar Sharma, Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha and Minister with responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh at the turning of the sod for the Onverwagt processing plant.

The sod was turned yesterday afternoon to mark the start of the construction of the Amaya Milk Company’s $150 million state-of-the-art milk processing facility at Onverwagt, West Coast Berbice, which is expected to produce pasteurized milk for store shelves by the end of April  next year.

Speaking at the ceremony, Omkaar Sharma, the founder of the company, explained that he spent 18 years in Canada, 12 of which he spent as part of the dairy sector at various levels. During that time, he said, he always wondered: “How awesome it would be to do that in Guyana?”

However, he added that the reality at that time was “Guyana does not have a dairy industry that is capable of supporting the kind of jobs that I was doing.” But during his visits to Guyana he continued to wonder “Why not Guyana?” And soon the question became: “Why don’t you do it?”