Milk shortage has led to cutting down production of the high-value milk products, with fresh milk given priority.
Milk scarcity has hit the production of dairy-based products like butter, cheese and ghee hard, reducing their presence on supermarket shelves.
The shortage has led to cutting down production of the high-value milk products, with fresh milk given priority.
“The exceptionally dry weather, which depressed our raw milk intake, caused an upset in our production planning. Some products were hit harder as we prioritised on immediate needs of our esteemed customers,” John Gethi, Brookside Dairy director of milk procurement, said in response to queries by the Business Daily.
“The supply of butter has gone down by 50 per cent… priority is given to fresh milk,” said New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (New KCC) managing director Nixon Sigey. French retailer Carrefour over the previous weekend posted a notice indicating there was a shortage of dairy products.
Mr Gethi said that rainfall patterns were “out of sync” with past trends, making it hard to predict when normal production schedules would resume.
The drought has cut milk production countrywide with KCC reporting a 40 per cent drop in intake. Processors have been reconstituting powder milk estimated at Sh2 billion into fresh milk to meet demand but the stocks are still short.
New KCC and Brookside had in excess of 1.2 million kilos of the product by February, which has been significant in supplementing limited deliveries by farmers.
According to the Kenya Dairy Board, milk production has increased by 10 per cent following the onset of the long rains.
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