Mr. Milkman is a state-of-the-art last-mile dairy supply chain SaaS platform that empowers dairies and other industries to manage customer subscriptions and deliveries with unrivalled efficiency. From the farm all the way to the end consumer, the real-time analytics platform easily tracks all sales data, provides a complete performance overview, and enables informed business decisions.
Krishi Jagran interacted with Samarth Setia, Co-Founder & CEO, Mr. Milkman to know more about how his company assists dairy farmers and about its products & services.
1. Tell us about yourself and how you came up with the idea to start "Mr. Milkman"?
It all began when I observed the problems faced by the local milkman who used to deliver to my home. He was struggling to manage his business due to the unorganized ways the market and the farms functioned. That is when I decided to help him and the numerous other milkmen who were struggling with their day-to-day business management. I left my job in 2015 to organize a platform that digitized the accounts of the local milkman’s customers and automated billings for the local doodhiyas.
The concept of Mr. Milkman was created to turn a local doodhiya into a digitally-advanced ‘Mr. Milkman’. The platform empowers dairies and other industries to manage customer subscriptions and deliveries with unrivaled efficiency. At the start, the platform initially was a marketplace that eventually turned into a full-fledged SaaS platform that not only helps automate the customary management for large and small-scale dairies but also helps the dairy industry to keep track of their operational processes by reporting sales anomalies and providing extensive reports. This real-time analytics platform easily tracks all sales data, provides a complete performance overview, and enables informed business decisions.
2. What is Mr. Milkman all about? What are your products & Services?
At Mr. Milkman, we ensure that there is a one-stop application of the latest technology in the dairy industry. With technologies that help in data security, transparency in approach, and analytical inputs, dairies can peacefully focus on production and growth as we take care of the entire supply chain management through our cloud-based platform. We also help manage the reverse logistics tracking for the customers. It includes peripheral items and aids the automation of processes like the generation of orders set to go to distributors, retail outlets, or end consumers. The platform also identifies and detects anomalies and notifies the sales team of the dairy in case there are any sudden changes in ordering patterns. This helps overcome errors and plug the problem of unnoticed losses.
3. How can small dairy businesses strengthen & optimize their operations?
The dairy industry has seen tremendous shifts through technology-driven products, services, and solutions in the past few decades. The new technology has become a game-changer in dairy farming worldwide. From milking machines to health-tracking devices for cattle, and feed management systems to transportation, technology has helped streamline the value chain by eliminating errors during the process. With real-time analytics dairy firms can experience the benefit of a single integrated supply management solution that manages complete work from the farm to the end consumer by trading production, quality supply, and monitoring overall performance. The dairy business can also get demand prediction data that helps them understand if a certain area is likely to see a spike in consumption, thus helping them manage their inventory better.
With the growing demand in India, the dairy sector and milk brands will need to employ technology at every level, right from milk procurement to end customer delivery. The local milk brands in India and around the world operate on slim margins. Since milk prices have a cap, the only way to be profitable is to become more efficient which can only happen by implementing technology from one end of the operations to the other.
4. Apart from the dairy industry, are you planning to extend your services to other industries such as distilleries, breweries, etc?
Last year, Dairy.com, America’s largest independent dairy supply chain technology provider, acquired Mr. Milkman and entered the Indian market to offer integrated supply chain solutions to dairies, Agritech, and other industries in India and abroad. Keeping in line with their expansion strategy, Dairy.com is now planning to provide MES Solutions and services to the brewery, distillery, and ethanol production through one of their Dublin-based subsidiaries Orbis. We believe there is immense potential in the Indian distillery market.
The Orbis MES system maximizes profitability for alcohol producers by tracking the supply chain from receiving, to brewhouse efficiency/ fermentation and tracking all process and quality factors throughout the manufacturing process. With the key focus on Mass balance and quality in the brewery industries, our combined technology solution will enable data management, increased accountability, single system operation, visualize traceability, and manage wastage and product loss.
5. How do you plan to take advantage of the collaboration with Dairy.com- America's largest independent dairy supply chain technology provider?
Recently, Dairy.com with ever.ag and EFC Systems announced the launch of EverAg, a company dedicated to empowering agriculture, food, and beverage supply chains to feed a growing world. The merger unites supply chain, agronomy, and risk management solutions for dairy, livestock, crops, and agribusiness into one unparalleled portfolio to operate more efficiently, sustainably, and strategically across every stage of the supply chain.
Today, nearly 50-60 percent of all the milk supplied in the US is tracked through Dairy.com’s system. Bringing this technology system in India with some small tweaks as per the Indian market with Mr. Milkman will provide advanced technology solutions to the dairy industry in India. Moreover, Dairy.com has solutions for the farm including Producer Payroll for payment and a Producer Portal to provide producers with data in real-time to optimize quality.
The integration of the Mr. Milkman and Dairy.com solutions is a major step that will benefit customers in India as well as in the US. Together we plan to provide a single software solution that is focused on increasing processors’ operations by digitization. This will help increase the profit margin that will allow brands to invest in their growth.
Combining the US dairy expertise with Mr. Milkman’s best solutions will allow customers to unlock opportunities in more than similar ways as are available in some of the developed nations. Also, now with EverAg, we are even better equipped to offer solutions necessary to help clients achieve operational efficiency and seamless movement of dairy and food from farm to fork.
(Author-Shivam Dwivedi)