The Tamil Nadu Milk Dealers’ Employees’ Welfare Association on Saturday questioned the reason behind Aavin suddenly trying to withdraw milk with 4.5% fat content citing health reasons.
Association president S.A. Ponnusamy said lakh of people drank unprocessed milk procured from cooperative societies and nobody knows how much fat the milk contained. He said the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation, whose brand is Aavin, was trying to sell milk with 4.5% fat at ₹56 per litre in places such as Madurai and Theni. If so, Aavin should ideally withdraw milk with 6% fat, he pointed out.
Aavin had introduced a new brand called ‘Gold’ in Vellore and Tiruvannamalai with 5% fat at ₹60 a litre, which is actually the price of Aavin’s full cream milk that has 6% fat content. The milk major recently announced that it was restructuring its milk variants to ensure the health of consumers. It had said it would concentrate on milk with 3% fat in blue packets, milk with 3.5% fat called ‘Delight’ and full cream milk with 6% fat content.
A dairy farmer said all categories of milk brought in by farmers were poured into chillers without being segregated according to fat or solids non-fat content. Aavin reconstituted the milk to pack the variants. Indigenous cattle, which are very few in numbers, gave milk up to 6% fat, while jersey cows gave milk with 4%-4.5% fat.
