Another milk war: Kerala cooperative red-flags Nandini entry in state

This has prompted the management of the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation — which runs the popular Milma brand — to write to its counterpart at Nandini, expressing strong reservations about its Kerala plans.

The Kerala cooperative has 15 lakh dairy farmer members and 3,000-odd cooperatives in its fold. Milma chairman K S Mani said there has been a growing tendency on the part of some state milk marketing federations (Nandini) to market staple products outside their respective domain. “This grossly violates federal principles and the cooperative spirit based on which the country’s dairy cooperative movement has been built and nurtured by pioneers like Tribhuvandas Patel and Dr Verghese Kurien. This move is against the basic tenets of cooperative spirit. Whether a brand from another state will affect our market or not is a secondary matter,” said Mani.

He said every federation has its earmarked domain and Milma is only concerned about the cross-border sale of the liquid milk brand of Nandini, while other products are already in the market. “There is stiff resistance in Karnataka against the move of Amul (Gujarat Milk Cooperative Federation) to sell its products in that state. When stakeholders of Karnataka Milk Federation are strongly opposing the entry of Amul to their market, how can the Karnataka Federation’s entry into Kerala be justified? This is unethical and defeats the very purpose of the country’s dairy cooperative movement,’’ he said.

Mani said Milma is one of the major clients of the Karnataka Federation. “When there is shortage of milk in Kerala, we make bulk purchases from Karnataka. There are occasions when we purchase 2 lakh litres of milk a day from Nandini. Their bid to start retail sales in Kerala will harm our interests and it’s mutually destructive,” he said.

He said though the input cost in dairy sector in Kerala is much higher compared to other states,

Milma passes on 83 per cent of its turnover to dairy farmers through the cooperative societies in its network. Also, the bulk of Milma’s surplus is given to farmers as additional incentive on milk price and subsidy on cattle feed.

“It is in the best interests of dairy cooperative federations of various states that they refrain from plans to open sales outlets or make franchisee arrangements to sell liquid milk and other staple products outside the respective state,” said the Milma chairman.