Ahmedabad, Aug 16 Dairy cooperative Amul on Tuesday announced a price hike of ₹2 per litre for its retail pouch milk across markets in the country. This was followed by other players such as Mother Dairy revising milk prices in tandem.

The hike works out to about 4 per cent to the maximum retail price of Amul milk. "This indicates that the price hike is still lower than the average food inflation," Amul marketer Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The revised prices will be made effective from August 17 across all markets where Amul sells its milk products including Gujarat, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, West Bengal, among others.

Surging input costs

Delhi-based Mother Dairy also announced milk price hike of ₹2 per litre effective from August 17. “The company has been experiencing a surge in varied input costs which have increased multifold during the last five months,” it said in a statement, adding that farm prices of raw milk have alone firmed up by almost 10-11 per cent in the same period.

“Likewise, the cost of feed and fodder has also witnessed a significant rise during the same time due to the heatwave observed earlier in the country and on account of the extended summer season,” the Mother Dairy statement said.

“The surge in farm prices is only being partially passed on to the consumers, thereby securing the interests of both the stakeholders—consumers and farmers,” Mother Dairy said.

Amul has also reasoned the price hike to the overall increase in cost of operations and milk production at farmer level.

"The cost of cattle feed has increased by 20 per cent in the past one year. Considering the rise in cost of inputs and cattle feed, the dairy unions affiliated to the Amul Federation have given 7-8 per cent increase in the milk procurement price," said the GCMMF statement.

"As part of its policy, Amul passes on 80 paise of each rupee earned to the milk producer. This price revision will help the milk producers to maintain the remunerative price of milk and as a result will encourage them to continue milk production," the statement said.

Mother Dairy, on the other hand, passes around 75-80 per cent of the sales realisation from milk towards the procurement of milk. A 500 ml pouch of full cream milk will now cost ₹31, while tonned milk will cost ₹26 per pouch of 500 ml, while double tonned and cow milk will cost ₹23 and ₹27 respectively.

As per revised prices, a 500 ml pouch of Amul Gold milk will cost ₹31 in Gujarat markets, while Amul Tazaa and Amul Shakti variants will cost ₹25 and ₹28 per 500 ml respectively.

The last price revision in Amul and Mother Dairy milk was made effective from March 1, 2022.

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