Curd hot on diet: Demand 6 times supply, leads to crisis
Times of India | 26 April 2024
Kolkata: There has been a severe shortage of packaged curd in shops and outlets across the city with its demand going up amid the scorching heat. Not just that, interrupted supply of raw milk due to cattle falling sick in the hot weather has led to a scarcity of other milk-based products as well.
Between Wednesday and Thursday, TOI spoke to a multiple shop owners and customers across Kolkata and all of them agreed about the sudden shortfall in unison.“In this immense heat, our entire family had shifted to a curd diet to stay fit. But, it is tough to get curd and lassi now, especially after the noon — be it at an offline store or online,” said Joyeeta Majumdar, a school teacher from Shyambazar.
A stationary shop owner in Behala, Prasanta Ghosh, said pandemonium broke out outside his store as two homemakers fought over the last two packets of curd at his store. “It has been a daily drama now with stocks running out by 11 am. No matter how many times I ask the supplier to increase the number of units, they are failing to do so,” Ghosh added.
Saurabh Jajodia, CEO of Metro Dairy, said they were producing 50,000 litres of ‘lassi’ and curd every day, but everything was being sold out.“The current demand is about six times the supply. The demand has shot up only because of the unprecedented heat. But we cannot increase the supply after a certain state because of multiple constraints, including manpower and machinery. From next year, keeping this demand in mind, we will increase our supply further,” said Jajodia. Another shop owner in Jadavpur, Koushik Dutta, said he had been rationing the products to last the day and was also selling limited units of curd, ‘lassi’ and other products to his customers. “My daily customers are calling me up in advance to book the units beforehand. How could I turn them down? Hence, I have started rationing the products and selling them in limited quantities to regular customers only,” said Dutta.
Another official of a top dairy products’ manufacturer in the city alleged an interrupted supply of raw milk had led to the shortfall. “Because of the immense heat, the cattle are falling sick and are producing less milk, affecting the production of other milk products,” said the official.