There’s a white revolution of sorts happening in the city. Over the past several months now varieties of branded milk, mostly from private dairy farms and cooperative societies in and around the district, are flooding grocery stores and finding their way into kitchens of those looking for something different.
“These days, we often get requests from new dairy suppliers to stock their branded milk. We’ve observed that there are takers for almost all brands of milk,” says G. Abhimanyu Ganesh of QRS who runs Nilgiris supermarkets on MG Road and Sreekariyam.
For the longest while Milma, the brand of the Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, was the only packaged milk easily available across the city; its iconic blue and white milk booths, a ubiquitous feature of the cityscape. However, new brands such as Papa’s Dairy, Milco, Pankajakasturi, Matha, Muralya, Mia Dairies, Malanadu, Heritage, A One, Nilgiris’ eponymous brand… and even one named, quite simply Pasuvin paal (cow’s milk), are giving it a good run for its moolah and are now available in stores.
Milco, the brand of the Mel-Kadakkavur Ksheera Vyavasaya Sahakarana Sangam, for instance, set up shop in the city a year ago. A cooperative of about 450 farmers, it has been in business since 1972, supplying milk and dairy products in and around Kadakavoor.
“It was not easy breaking into the milk market in the city because Milma has an established brand value and a loyal customer base, not to mention a government tag. Milk, being a highly perishable product, is in itself difficult to sell because even a hint of spoilage can curdle the reputation of fledging brands like ours. It’s been tough all the way but we now sell upwards of 3,000 packets of toned milk a day,” says R. Anilkumar, secretary of the Sangam.
Dairy farmers, suppliers and store owners all say that customers are always willing to shell out a little extra for branded products that are perceived as organic (or, at least, free range), farm fresh, preservative- additive- and chemical-free and, mostly importantly, those that taste like proper cow’s milk and not watery milk powder.
“Feedback from our customers suggests that, whatever the brand, they prefer to buy what appears to be fresh and pure cow’s milk. A majority of those who are keen on branded milk appear to be young couples buying for their children and customers from the upper crust of society. There’s not much demand for buffalo milk here, though it is said to be equally nutritious. Also, organic continues to be the buzzword for health conscious customers and that applies not only to fresh produce but fresh milk and dairy products as well,” explains Abhimanyu.
That’s likely why Papa’s Dairy, based in Mulayara near Vilappilshala, stresses on quality above quantity. “We started off small 12 years ago and chose to stay relatively small because we do not want to compromise on quality for quantity; we don’t use preservatives or added flavours in our milk, for example. We deliberately keep volumes low, so we are able to supply fresh milk on the day of procurement itself or the following morning,” says Captain Laju Cherian, a commercial pilot, who runs the farm.
Some customers, particularly millennials, they say, go as far as to find out more about the dairy farms — Are the farms hygienic? What type of feed is given to milch cows? How well are the cows treated in the farms? Is the milk homogenised? Is it toned?…Even the packaging matters, it seems, and many of the brands strive to keep up the image.
“Our one-litre reusable plastic milk bottles are a huge hit with customers. Keeping all those criteria in mind, we ensure that we procure milk only from our own high-tech farm and from other satellite farms that we support and run quality control checks on,” says Arun P. Unni, sales manager of Muralya, a Kattakada-based milk processing unit. Just three months into operations they already sell about 1,000 to 1,500 litres of milk a day in the city.
Mia Dairies, just a couple of months old in the business, meanwhile, has chosen a rather salt of the earth approach to their brand. They specialise in unprocessed milk, straight from the eight cows in their farm in Valliyur, near Nagercoil. “Many of us grew up drinking fresh milk from the cows reared in our own homes. Our aim is to take our customers back to their roots with a glass or two of fresh milk that has not been pasteurised or homogenised,” says Robin Mathew, owner and food entrepreneur, who is currently developing an app to manage milk delivery. “Instead of the morning, we’ve found it’s easier to deliver in the late evenings when most of our customers are back from work,” he says.
Given their success with milk, some dairies have started to diversify their product line as well. Milco, for instance, does a roaring trade in ice-creams as well, apart from ghee, curd, and even cattle feed and manure. Nilgiris has a whole range of dairy products, from curd and frozen yoghurt to cheddar cheese and shrikand, a milk-based dessert. Papa’s Dairy that already has ghee and yoghurt on its menu, will shortly launch set curd and paneer…
It’s only a matter of taking your pick for your everyday dairy needs.
Milma all the way
Milma sells 2.15 lakh litres of toned milk a day in the city, about half of which is procured from the district itself. “We have a comfortable lead; our nearest competitor, for instance, sells around 10,000 litres a day, mostly to institutional buyers. That does not mean we are being complacent. We open new outlets, buy milk at competitive rates, provide agents with freezers and coolers and so on,” says a spokesperson for Milma.
