For more than 30 years I was a loyal consumer of Aarey Milk as many Mumbaikars would be. Over the last few months, the milk quality has been deteriorating. The curd prepared out of the milk has a strange texture to it… custard like feel, all sticky and difficult to describe with nothing like a curd taste to it. Though the milk strangely seemed okay (till we realised that gradually in time we forgot how authentic milk tastes).
I visited the Worli office of Aarey Milk and met up with an official out there who was very cooperative. To begin with he said there is a huge shortage of most kinds of Aarey milk and especially the toned milk (the less fat one). Why was that? He said with a flood of private players entering the milk business, farmers are getting better paid and Aarey, under government rules, cannot go beyond a certain payment level. Well according to dairy industry estimates, the prices of milk have consistently increased around 17-19% in the last three years. This is attributed more to the sharp increase in demand from milk-based food industry.
Ok that’s regards quantity, what about the quality. He said he would check with the concerned milk booth guys (the Aarey vendors supplying to us in our area) if any kind of pilfering was happening.
But the other interesting things that came out during our long chat suggested there may be various twists to the Aarey growth story. When the milk and dairy business is booming with large number of private players entering this segment … you even have a private player like Carlyle Group, one of the largest private equity firms in the U.S. investing Rs 110 crore for a 25% stake in Tirumala Milk products, a Rs 750 crore dairy company..... you wonder what the government is doing with a long running till now successful enterprise like Aarey Milk occupying huge tracts of land in the city of Mumbai (Worli, Goregoan, Powai). And interestingly this Aarey official harped on it … for what reason I don’t know. He said you know politicians must be eyeing this huge land and on the same tone he himself thinks Aarey will close down soon. Strange words coming from one working in there. These words were also voiced by MNS MLA Pravin Darekar saying “I have a feeling that the government is eyeing the hundreds of acres of land owned by the Aarey dairy, whose milk production has gone down drastically.” This was said in the context of the opposition allegation in state assembly in March 2010 against the government leasing out 1,811 Aarey Milk Colony stalls to a private player for a paltry Rs 7 a stall per day.
Even if the story of a vast land in the heart of Mumbai is not the moot point here, the government seems to be showing no interest in making Aarey one of the leading milk businesses when it has a long head start and the resources available. Leave alone innovation and diversification, it hardly matters if private competition is eating up its market share.
I for one did not even wait for a response to see if the milk quality has been checked, I changed to another milk brand which so many others may do. Seems like the government can hardly be bothered about the business of milk as surely it is not as lucrative as the vast tracts of land it owns!!!
I visited the Worli office of Aarey Milk and met up with an official out there who was very cooperative. To begin with he said there is a huge shortage of most kinds of Aarey milk and especially the toned milk (the less fat one). Why was that? He said with a flood of private players entering the milk business, farmers are getting better paid and Aarey, under government rules, cannot go beyond a certain payment level. Well according to dairy industry estimates, the prices of milk have consistently increased around 17-19% in the last three years. This is attributed more to the sharp increase in demand from milk-based food industry.
Ok that’s regards quantity, what about the quality. He said he would check with the concerned milk booth guys (the Aarey vendors supplying to us in our area) if any kind of pilfering was happening.
But the other interesting things that came out during our long chat suggested there may be various twists to the Aarey growth story. When the milk and dairy business is booming with large number of private players entering this segment … you even have a private player like Carlyle Group, one of the largest private equity firms in the U.S. investing Rs 110 crore for a 25% stake in Tirumala Milk products, a Rs 750 crore dairy company..... you wonder what the government is doing with a long running till now successful enterprise like Aarey Milk occupying huge tracts of land in the city of Mumbai (Worli, Goregoan, Powai). And interestingly this Aarey official harped on it … for what reason I don’t know. He said you know politicians must be eyeing this huge land and on the same tone he himself thinks Aarey will close down soon. Strange words coming from one working in there. These words were also voiced by MNS MLA Pravin Darekar saying “I have a feeling that the government is eyeing the hundreds of acres of land owned by the Aarey dairy, whose milk production has gone down drastically.” This was said in the context of the opposition allegation in state assembly in March 2010 against the government leasing out 1,811 Aarey Milk Colony stalls to a private player for a paltry Rs 7 a stall per day.
Even if the story of a vast land in the heart of Mumbai is not the moot point here, the government seems to be showing no interest in making Aarey one of the leading milk businesses when it has a long head start and the resources available. Leave alone innovation and diversification, it hardly matters if private competition is eating up its market share.
I for one did not even wait for a response to see if the milk quality has been checked, I changed to another milk brand which so many others may do. Seems like the government can hardly be bothered about the business of milk as surely it is not as lucrative as the vast tracts of land it owns!!!