Mother Dairy to hike milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in NCR from Tuesday

Mother Dairy, India’s leading dairy partner, is set to hike milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in Delhi-NCR market with effect from Tuesday due to rise in input costs.

According to a news report by news agency PTI, Mother Dairy will increase the prices of full-cream milk by Rs 2 to Rs 66 per litre, while the toned milk rate has been revised to Rs 53 per litre from Rs 51 per litre. Meanwhile, the double-toned milk rate has been increased to Rs 47 per litre from Rs 45 per litre.

This is the fifth round of increases in milk prices this year by Mother Dairy.

Additionally the prices of cow milk and token (bulk vended) milk variants will not be increased.

The company attributed the price increase to higher costs of procuring raw milk from dairy farmers.

"It is an unprecedented year for the dairy industry. We have been witnessing a significant increase in demand of milk and milk products from both consumers and institutions, even after festivals. On the other hand, procurement of raw milk has also not picked up after Diwali as was anticipated," the company said as reported by PTI.

The procurement prices of raw milk have gone up by about 24 percent over the last year due to higher input costs and heatwave conditions according to Mother Dairy.

"This stress on the raw milk prices is being felt across the industry, putting pressure on the consumer prices. In our commitment to continue paying remunerative prices to farmers to ease the impact, we are severely constrained to revise consumer prices of select variants of milk in Delhi NCR effective from December 27, 2022," Mother Dairy said.

Several rounds of price increases have been taken by the company in the current calendar year. Last month, the company increased full-cream milk prices in Delhi-NCR by 1 rupee per litre and token milk prices by 2 rupees per litre.

In October, Mother Dairy increased full-cream milk prices in Delhi-NCR and some other markets in North India by Rs 2 per litre. For all variants, rates were raised in March and August by Rs 2.