Dairy sector comes under the spotlight

Haleeb Foods Ltd CEO Memosh Khawaja sees a huge potential in the Pakistani dairy sector and to capitalise this opportunity he suggested the government to come up with a comprehensive 'Dairy Sector Development Strategy'.
"This strategy should cover different areas, like incentivizing investment in the organised sector, reduction of duties and taxes at multiple stages, better veterinary care and overall management of dairy animals with farmers through the livestock departments," he elaborated during an interview with the Business Recorder here on Monday.
The dairy sector has the potential of adding substantially to the GDP overall, generate large-scale employment and help address the alarming nutrition deficiency, which is almost close to 44 percent in the country, Khawaja claimed. Pakistan is the third largest milk producing country in the world and currently its milk production is approximately 54 billion litres annually. Hence, the dairy sector can immediately start with the export of value added dairy products, he said.
During a recent meeting of Pakistan Dairy Association (PDA) with the Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, various measures including putting in place uniform food standards across the country were suggested with tax related incentives to further promote the growth of the sector, Khawaja added.
He appreciated the actions related to quality checking of loose milk and punishing law-breakers taken by the government. He pointed out that Punjab government at least has already announced that loose milk will be banned in the province within next 5 years. "We welcome this decision taken in the interest of public health after thorough evaluation of the current processes of loose milk collection, transportation, distribution and retail to consumers," he claimed.
Khawaja also lauded the ongoing efforts of the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) of taking this long-neglected issue of milk quality and working now towards bringing about necessary legislation. He advocated for improving the quality of milk through its pasteurization and explained that "pasteurisation is a thermisation process, which uses lower temperatures to kill bacteria in milk".
"It eliminates a fair percentage of bacteria, the UHT process goes even further and eliminates up to 99.9 percent of harmful bacteria found in raw milk," he added.
He found the working of both PSQCA and PFA commendable, but in his opinion these institutions lacked co-ordination. "It is now desirable that their work gets more co-ordinated, so that one single uniform food standard is developed and adopted for the whole country.
"There are some conflicts within the product standards provided by PSQCA and PFA, which ultimately confuse the manufacturers, as they cannot follow two different standards at a time for their products that are being distributed nationwide," he added.
Hence, Khawaja said, the PDA has suggested creating a Milk Board and Harmonization of Dairy Standardization in the country, as the PFA's standards could not be followed nationwide. "Having national food standards at federal level will not only eliminate present confusion, but it will also mean that the dairy industry as a whole can grow better under one set of harmonized standards," he added.
He observed that at present loose milk market holds almost 90 percent of the market share while packaged milk is only 10 percent. However, he said, if a comparison is made between the packaged milk and loose milk, there is a huge gap.
"The packaged milk companies procure raw milk directly from dairy farmers, and every farmer is registered and inducted through a traceable/well defined mechanism. And, there are standard quality protocols that are strictly followed on every stage, from procurement to the packaging of milk.
"However, there is no check and balance that regulates loose milk at any stage and also the hormones injections given to animals not only harm the health of animals but also the milk quality. That is why the Supreme Court recently banned the sale of such injections," he said.
When asked how the Haleeb Foods ensure quality in their milk, he told that with a strong emphasis on hygiene, nutrition, health and well-being of its consumers, they use world-class dairy processing methods.
"At Haleeb Foods, we ensure that the milk source is reliable and we take fresh farm milk from only registered farmers. We also ensure the health and feed of animals, and we properly train and support farmers on regular basis. Secondly, only our trained milk-collection staff collects fresh milk. Thirdly, we ensure chilled milk transportation through our hygienic food grade chillers. Fourthly, the UHT process is applied for sterilization of milk and the last step is the aseptic Tetra Pak packaging. During this process, milk goes under 30 tests before it is processed," he added.
Talking about the company's future plans, he revealed that their mission is to become one of the most inspirational dairy and beverage companies in Pakistan by delivering high growth, leading innovation and stakeholder partnerships, and driving operational excellence.
"Our vision for the future is to be in every consumer's home through the high-quality safe products we bring to their everyday life. We want to be recognized as a high-quality food manufacturer, and for our sustainable growth we continue to research and develop new products for our valuable consumers," he added.