Milk Demand up 5 -10 percent, No Major Supply Disruptions amid Lockdowns: Mother Dairy

Mother Dairy that supplies more than 30 lakh litres of milk daily in the national capital region said that it is not experiencing any major supply disruptions in spite of 5 to 10% increase in demand, amid lockdowns across the country in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.

Spokesperson of Mother Dairy told PTI that "We are relentlessly working towards ensuring & meeting the demand for milk across the region with no major supply disruption. As milk is a necessary commodity, we are closely working with all our stakeholders & taking all efforts to ensure seamless flow in the value chain to serve customers at these challenging times. For today, we have seen a surge in demand of milk in the range of 5 to 10%".

On the other hand, Parag Milk, a major player in Maharashtra told that it is facing problems in the distribution of milk from the last 2 days due to restrictions in the movement of its employees & distributors from local authorities.

Chairman of Parag Milk Foods, Devendra Shah said, "We have seen an increase in orders across all categories because of higher stocking by consumers for food items & this is likely to continue for some time." He said the increase in demand is mostly from modern trade & e-commerce platforms & orders from general trade are tepid.

Not just milk, the demand for other dairy products such as ghee, paneer and curd, has also gone up as people are purchasing these items in huge quantities than they normally do.

Shah said, "Though the demand is good, there are certain challenges that we are facing since the past two days. Although the government has allowed the essential product supplies but local bodies are not letting delivery boys and distributors to continue with their work".

Chairman and managing director of Ananda Dairy, R S Dixit said there are problems but we are doing our best to serve the nation at this time".

MD, Amul R S Sodhi also said there was no shortage of milk in India and people should not resort to hoarding of dairy products. Sodhi said that the cooperative has increased supply by 15 to 20% to meet the surge in demand.