January 29, 2013

India dairies to produce milk from skimmed milk powder
 

Indian dairies are expected to produce milk from leftover stocks of skimmed milk powder.
 
It is a general trend that half of the milk produced from March onwards is reconstituted from SMP with the addition of butter oil. According to industry estimates, the SMP stock in the country is between 90,000 tonne and 1.10 lakh tonnes. Mother Dairy and state cooperative federations of Gujarat and Karnataka were holding close to 70-80% of SMP stocks from 2011 and 2012.
 
Private dairies have started giving discounts and additional margins to retailers to increase their share in the competitive market, which is dominated by National Dairy Development Board's Mother Dairy and Amul.
 
According to Mother Dairy MD S Nagarajan, milk is available in good supply from October to February. "There is a sufficient stock of SMP in the country and we see exports of casein and SMP picking up.
 
In 2012-13, liquid milk prices increased by 3-4% compared to 2011-12. For the coming fiscal, it will be important to watch closely the onset of summer and the availability there on. No one expects runaway price increase as in the past," he said. Milk and milk products kept inflation figures high in the last few years.