Coronavirus Outbreak: Mother Dairy says milk demand up 5-10%, facing no major supply disruptions amid lockdowns

New Delhi: Mother Dairy, which supplies over 30 lakh litres of milk everyday in the national capital region, said it is not facing any major supply disruptions in spite of 5-10 percent increase in demand on Tuesday, amid lockdowns in the wake of coronavirus spread. However, Parag Milk, a major player in Maharashtra, said it is facing challenges in the distribution of milk from the last two days, because of restrictions in the movement of its employees and distributors from local authorities. "We are relentlessly working towards ensuring and meeting the demand for milk across the region with no major supply disruptions. As milk is an essential commodity, we are closely working with all our stakeholders and taking all efforts to ensure seamless flow in the value chain to serve consumers at these challenging times. For today, we have seen a surge in demand of our milk in the range of 5-10 percent," Mother Dairy spokesperson told PTI. [caption id="attachment_5215161" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational image. PTI[/caption]Devendra Shah, Chairman, Parag Milk Foods, said: "We have seen an increase in orders across all categories due to higher stocking by consumers for food items and this is likely to continue for some time." The increase in demand is mostly from modern trade and e-commerce platforms while orders from general trade are tepid, he said. Not only milk, the demand for other dairy products like paneer, curd, ghee has also gone high as people are buying these items in large quantities than they normally do, in anticipation of supply disruptions in view of lockdowns. "Though the demand is good, there are certain challenges which we are facing since the last two days. Though the government has allowed the essential product supplies but local bodies are not allowing delivery boys or distributors to continue with their work," Shah said. He said another challenge is manpower shortage due to the non-availability of public transport. Ananda Dairy chairman and managing director R S Dixit said there are problems but we are doing our best efforts to serve the nation". Dairy major Amul MD R S Sodhi had said recently there was no shortage of milk in the country and people should not resort to hoarding of dairy products. He had said that the cooperative has increased supply by 15-20 percent to meet the surge in demand.