White Evolution
Growing demand for
fresh and unadulterated milk has encouraged a bunch of young entrepreneurs to
enter the premium milk business
Food writer Pawan Soni noticed a
new trend recently. A second white revolution was slowly spreading across
India.
About 48 years after a movement
transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s largest milk
producer, Soni is seeing a flurry of queries on how and where to get pure cow
milk. His Facebook platform has seen conversations around quality and safety of
milk growing manifold — all thanks to premium milk.
Farm to Table
Premium milk is not another fancy
term, says Kanika Yadav, who started Whyte Farms in Alwar to cater to areas in
Delhi-NCR. It is fresh, unadulterated and uncontaminated milk delivered within
8-12 hours of milking, explains the teacherturned-entrepreneur who has 200
cows. The first few months of her entrepreneurial venture were spent in educating
people in her social circle about premium milk. “I had to explain the
difference between the dairy milk we get in pouches and what I was planning. A
dairy is just a milk aggregator. It collects milk from villages, processes and
packs it before sending it to retailers. The process involves mixing several
varieties and may take up to four days. This eliminated freshness and one has
no chance of knowing the source of the milk.”
As the farm-to-table movement —
the demand by consumers to know the source of the food they eat — spreads,
several app-based premium milk delivery services have started delivering fresh
and unadulterated milk within hours of milking. Keventers, Binsar Farms,
O’Leche, Pride of Cows, Vrindawan Milk, Akshayakalpa, Astra Dairy Farms and Puremilk
are among the specialised farms catering to this demand in various parts of the
country.
While mothers have for years
complained to the milkman about the poor quality they were being served, it was
a 2012 report by the Food and Safety Standards Authority of India that laid the
foundation for premium milk. A study of samples from across the country said
70% of milk was being adulterated or diluted. The adulterants included
detergents and urea. Premium milk suppliers say this started a wide-spread farm-to-table
movement in India. People even started asking the condition of the cows and
what it was being fed.
Quality comes at a cost, at least
in milk. A litre of premium milk costs ₹80-100
against ₹36-40 a litre from a dairy in Delhi.
The absence of good milk made
Sohrab Sitaram of Keventers launch The Milk Co. He and his partners have a farm
of 400 healthy cows of good breed. Milking and packing is done using the latest
technology. Milk is bottled and delivered to the customer on the same day.
Keventers’ app lets people place an order a couple of days in advance. “We
ensure that the entire process — from sourcing to packaging — is entirely
automated and without any human intervention.”
India’s milk production increased
to 163.7 million tonnes in 2016-17, according to Agriculture Minister Radha
Mohan Singh. Per capita availability of milk increased to 351 g in 2016-17. The
country’s dairy market is estimated at $120 billion, of which the organised
sector accounts for $70 billion. The size of the premium milk segment is not
even 1% of the dairy market. But it has potential and is expected to be 5% of
this market by 2020.
It is a niche product, says
Sohrab, who sells a litre for ₹95. “In a short span of two months, we have a
supply order of 1,000 litres a day. The demand in NCR is in lakhs of litres.
But we our focus is on quality. We have to constantly monitor the cows and the
process.”
While Delhi’s per capita
availability of milk was 35 g a day in 2016-17, according to National Dairy
Development Board, Karnataka’s was far higher at 291. This number is good news
for Shashi Kumar of Akshayakalpa, an organic milk farm with 2,000 cows in
Karnataka that supplies to Bengaluru. The city alone might have a demand of 51
lakh litres of milk a day, he says. For now, he is happy with his supply of
15,000 litres. But he expects the demand to touch 50,000 litres in next five
years. “We ensure cows get quality food and are kept in hygienic conditions. We
time the milking to the lactation periods so that we don’t have to use
artificial means to increase production,” he adds.
Parag Milk, a prominent player in
the milk industry, started its premium milk brand Pride of Cows in 2012. It now
delivers 25,000 litres a day to Mumbai, Pune and Surat from its farm in
Manchar, Maharashtra. It relies on a mechanised rotary parlour for hygienically
procured fresh cow milk.
Akshayakalpa was set up in 2012
after Shashi returned from the US. Working in Wipro, he and his 13 colleagues
helped fund the initial efforts. Their processing plant and fodder research
facility is in Titpur, 150 km from Bengaluru. Shashi does not want to sell his
product from premium grocery stores in Bengaluru, lest it dilutes their brand.
AND
Whyte Farms, which has 200 cows in
Alwar, delivers within 8-12 hours of milking
Parag Milk’s brand Pride of Cows
delivers 25,000 litres a day in Mumbai and Pune from its farm in Manchar,
Maharashtra
Parag Milk’s brand Pride of Cows
delivers 25,000 litres a day in Mumbai, Pune and Surat from its farm in
Manchar, Maharashtra
MILK MATTERS
163.7 mt
India’s milk production in 2016-17
$120 bn
Estimated size of the country’s diary market
$70 bn Size of the organised sector
₹ 80-100 is cost of a litre of premium milk
₹ 36-40 is
cost of a litre from a dairy in Delhi
Premium milk segment is not even 1% of the
dairy market
Premium milk segment likely to be 5% of the
dairy market by 2020
Amin Ali
ETM12AUG18
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