The Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Co (Vinamilk) has received a licence to purchase a 70 percent stake of Driftwood Co in California, at a cost of 7 million USD.

Established in 1946, Driftwood Dairy specialises in producing and distributing products such as fresh milk, soybean and ice cream, and fruit juice for schools. It is the largest such company in California, USA.

The company, which sells its products in California and abroad, has an annual revenue of more than 100 million USD. However, it has yet to turn a profit.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HSC), Vinamilk is expected to help Driftwood turn a profit.

Vinamilk will expand production under the Driftwood trademark, and then after market research, it will launch Vinamilk-branded products.

This is the second foreign trade deal of Vinamilk after the company in 2009 poured 179 billion VND (8.52 million USD) into Miraka Company that specialises in whole milk powder from New Zealand for a 19.3 percent stake of the business.

Miraka is an important raw-material supplier of powdered milk for Vinamilk.

This year, the company targets total revenue of 32.5 trillion VND (1.54 billion USD), after-tax profits of 6.23 trillion VND (296.66 million USD), and 34 percent dividends.

After nine months, the company has reached 80 percent of the year's profit plans.

Vinamilk has also announced that underprivileged children in Cam Khe district, northern Phu Tho province, were provided with more than 33,000 free glasses of milk.

The milk donation programme is under the Vietnam Rising Milk Fund launched by the Vietnam Children Sponsoring Fund and Vinamilk. It aims to reduce the percentage of malnourished children nationwide.

In the last five years, the fund provided 20 million free glasses of milk worth 75 billion VND (3.57 million USD) to 286,000 underprivileged children nationwide.-VNA