Mother Dairy hikes milk price by Rs 2 per litre

Mother Dairy has raised the prices of several variants of milk by Rs 2 per litre. The dairy major stated that the price rise would be effective from December 27.

This is the fifth round of hikes in milk prices this year by Mother Dairy, one of the leading milk suppliers in Delhi-NCR with volumes of more than 30 lakh litres per day.

While the price of full-cream milk has gone up from Rs 64 per litre to Rs 66 per litre, that of toned milk has gone up from Rs 51 to Rs 53. Double-toned milk will cost Rs 47 per litre from Rs 45 earlier.

However, the Mother Dairy statement said, there will be no revision in the MRP of cow milk and token milk variants.

According to the Mother Dairy spokesperson, the hike in prices is due to the increase in the company's procurement cost of raw milk from dairy farmers.

“The procurement prices of raw milk have gone up by about 24 per cent over last year due to higher input costs, heatwave conditions, etc. This stress on the raw milk prices is being felt across the industry, putting pressure on the consumer prices.”

While there has been a significant increase in demand for milk and milk products from both consumers and institutions, even after festivals, the procurement of raw milk has not picked up after Diwali as was anticipated, said the statement.

Mother Dairy passes on about 75-80 per cent of prices paid by consumers to the milk producers. It says, “As a responsible organization, we have always endeavoured to strike (the) right balance between farmers and consumers and, therefore, we have been passing the increased input cost to our consumers partially on select variants/SKUs and in a phased manner.”

The frequent increase in milk prices has, however, put a considerable burden on the household budget.

Amul, the largest player in the dairy sector, has not made any announcements of an increase in milk prices in Delhi-NCR so far.