Milking the organic market

At five every morning and then again at the same time in the evening, the soothing strains of sitar waft over the farmlands of Bhirauti in Haryana, about an hour's drive from Gurgaon. It is time for the 1,000 cows of the Wholly Cow dairy to be milked.

Kiran Balhara, who looks after marketing for the dairy — which home delivers "organic, unadulterated, and farm-fresh" cow milk to residents of Gurgaon, south Delhi, and Faridabad — says the music has a purpose. It makes the cows happy and "happy cows give happy milk".

Rahul Jain, co-owner of Dr Moo, which again delivers organic and farm-fresh cow milk to residents of Mumbai and Pune, shares Balhara's belief. Jain, 27, investment banker-turned-dairy entrepreneur, says the cows on his 60-acre farm near Pune are never tied up, which makes them less stressed.

A number of boutique dairies have sprung up in recent years — there's Sarda Farms near Nashik, Pride of Cows (owned by Parag Milk Foods) and Dr Moo near Pune, Milk Company near Alwar and Wholly Cow which deliver to the National Capital Region. Not all of them are organic but all are automated — they advertise their products as being "untouched by human hand", and claim fewer contaminants in their milk.

Sarda Farms' Holstein cows, according to its website, have "special hay beds to ensure they are comfortable while sleeping or resting, industrial fans to keep them cool" and "a designated ruminating area to help the cows ruminate in leisure".

Two years ago, a survey conducted by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India showed that nearly 70% of milk samples tested were adulterated. Some of that adulteration was caused by pretty stomach-churning stuff — like detergents and starch.

Discerning consumers are now happy to have an alternative. Anuradha Kumar, Gurgaon resident and entrepreneur, says standard, branded milk and milk products used to give her six-year-old daughter a stomach ache. The family moved to Wholly Cow and the child has been better ever since, says Kumar.

Chandra Bhushan, head of the Centre for Science and Environment's food safety and toxins team, says that a lot of the milk available in the market is adulterated, especially in the north. But, he adds, the FSSAI survey mostly found problems with the milk sold loose in India, not packaged milk.

RS Sodhi, managing director of Amul, says the milk the cooperative buys is checked and tested at four different points from the time the farmer pours it out of his bucket to the time it is dispatched. Prabhakar Kanade, chief R&D officer for Mother Dairy, says farmers are paid as per the fat content of the milk they supply, making it difficult for them to adulterate it.

Even then premium milk is slowly finding a clientele. Wholly Cow milk costs Rs 70 a litre, Sarda charges between Rs 65 to Rs 80 depending on how long you order from them for, and a litre of Dr Moo costs Rs 60. Full cream milk from Amul or Mother Dairy, on the other hand, will cost you Rs 44.

Jain and his partner Anmol Trikkanad buy, and then market and distribute the milk they buy from an existing farm. Their USP is that their milk is adulteration and contamination-free and that it is organic, which again means it is free of chemicals, pesticides and injected hormones.

Bhushan adds that there is a growing market for organic foodstuff among discerning consumers. Kumar, for example, says she gets her chicken and pork from a nearby organic farm. And of course there is the fact that Mother Dairy and Amul sell you a mix of cow and buffalo milk, while the boutique dairies stick purely to cow milk.

The organic market, however, is hard to cultivate. Sandeep Chhillar, chairman of the Landmark Group which owns Wholly Cow, says they'd sent, gratis, two bottles of their milk to every flat in Aralias, one of Gurgaon's poshest residential complexes but got no response. "Which homeowner worries about the milk coming into the house?" asks Chhillar. "The maid probably accepted delivery of the bottles and then did what she felt like with them."

And maintaining organic farmland and ensuring wholly organic feed for the cattle is an expensive proposition given the low demand for this milk. The cost of production of ordinary milk, on the other hand, is close to zero. On most small farms, says Chhillar, the man looks after the fields while the wife looks after the cows. And the feed for the cows comes from the leftover parts of the crops grown in the fields.

None of the organic dairy entrepreneurs have yet broken even. Balhara has 2,000 customers while Pride of Cows says it currently caters to over 5,000 families on its Facebook page; others choose not to share their numbers. Also, the conservative Indian palate might take time adjusting to the taste of organic milk. Chhillar says his customers complain that the smell of his milk changes from time to time. "They don't realize that it has not been chemically treated and its smell will depend on the fodder given to the cow. And since fodder changes with the seasons, the smell of the milk will change too," he says.