Verka-Amul milk war hots up

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 30

Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation (Milkfed), which sells products under the popular Verka brand, has decided to overhaul its business strategy in view of the growing competition.

The stakes have gone up due to the advent of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, the owners of the Amul brand, in Punjab, which was the fourth largest milk producer in the country in 2014. Amul, which has invested Rs150 crore, is slowly building its milk collection centres in the state.

Milkfed, which has recorded profit for the third consecutive year, is launching new products (including sugar-free drinks) and opening an e-office to improve efficiency in service delivery. The cooperative is also going in for major recruitment of technical staff. HR managers, technical staff and dairy marketing managers from premier institutes such as the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, have been recruited.

To retain most of the milk producers as its suppliers, Milkfed is paying the highest MSP for milk in the state.

Talking to The Tribune, Manjit Singh Brar, Milkfed MD, said, “In 2014-15, our turnover was Rs2,400 crore and the profit was Rs13 crore; in 2015-16, the turnover reached Rs2,700 crore and the profit was Rs25 crore. In the just-concluded fiscal, the cooperative’s turnover is expected to be Rs3,100 crore and the profit might touch Rs30 crore (audited results are yet to come in).”

For the first time, three milk unions (Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Mohali) are giving bonus. Of the 11 unions, eight will be in profit soon, he added.

Brar said 70 per cent of the sales volumes for the cooperative was from milk, with 14.5 lakh litres per day being the average milk procurement.

Amul has leased two plants at Gurdaspur and Khamano and is selling almost 1.5 lakh litres of milk a day. The city where Amul is giving a tough time to Verka is Ludhiana, where the latter has seen its sales slipping.