With its daily milk procurement touching 40 lakh litres, the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, which owns the Aavin brand, said it had enough ghee and butter stocks to meet the festival season demand. The city consumes 14.8 lakh litres of milk per day (LLPD) and the rest of the State buys 15 lakh litres daily.
“Apart from the 30.50 LLPD being sold as milk in packets in the State, we have 10 lakh litres to make milk products. At the same time, we are building our buffer of butter and skimmed milk powder,” said a source in the federation.
The dairy major has opened additional sales channels to ensure availability of its products. Supermarkets have been roped in for this. Asked if the new system affected supply of ghee and butter in the market, the official said supermarkets and wholesalers should take other milk-based products such as flavoured milk, paneer and badam mix if they wanted ghee and butter.
“This is being done in the ratio of 70:30 where 30% of the purchase amount will go towards ghee and butter, which are popular among our products. Sellers seem to be finding it inconvenient to get into this arrangement. They don’t want to place orders for other products hence consumers feel that there is a shortage of products, which is not true,” said the source.
Franchisees and distributors are unhappy that supermarkets were taking away their share of sales by reducing prices. “They do not understand that the 70:30 system is to ensure product availability in all outlets. We are providing them up to a week to place orders. They can place orders and make payments online,” the source explained.
