Milkfed to raise rates of sweets by 14% from Oct 1 in Punjab

In the wake of spiralling milk products and sugar prices, Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation, popularly known as Milkfed, has decided to raise prices of sweets by a whopping 14 per cent from October 1.

"As prices of sugar and milk items have risen considerably, we have decided to increase rates of our sweets by Rs 20 per 800 gm of pack which will be effective from October 1," a senior official of Milkfed said today.

Milkfed brings out three special kinds of sweets including 'Dhoda', 'Kaju Barfi' and 'Sonpapdi' only during Diwali festival every year. "Prices of these three items will be increased to Rs 160 per 800 gm of pack from Rs 140 per pack," he said.

Milkfed has already raised rates of its regular sweet items including Pinni and Milkcake by Rs 20 per kg from September 1.

Although, Milkfed is not a major player in local sweets market, but its decision to raise rates is likely to prompt other players to jack up their sweet rates that would further pinch sweet lovers, market experts said.

Milkfed is expecting to sell 100,000 kg of sweets against 75,000 kg of sweets sold last Diwali season. It hopes to garner annual revenue of Rs 30-40 lakh during this fiscal from sweets category, against Rs 20 lakh achieved in last fiscal.

Besides, sugar prices which have already reached Rs 34 per kg in retail, rising prices of ghee (clarified butter) also forced the state cooperative to go for hiking sweets prices.

Milkfed, which is one of the biggest players in ghee market, raised rates of ghee by 4 per cent a week back in view of shortage of milk and rising cattle feed prices. It increased the rates of tin packing of ghee to Rs 240 per litre from Rs 230 per litre which was made effective from September 11.

"The hike in ghee rates was imminent in order to retain our milk suppliers as rising input prices for dairy farm owners have hit them hard. Moreover, during this period, milk production declines," an official revealed.

Milkfed on an average process 10 lakh kg of milk per day, which it procures from dairy farmers.

Set up in 1973, Milkfed has an objective provide remunerative milk market to state milk producers by value addition and marketing of produce and further provide technical inputs to them.