Producers destroy milk

Affected by the closure of dairy factories

Milk producers destroyed their production, yesterday, as per the decision taken by the Ministry of Economy and Trade to close six dairy factories for violating health standards.

According to Ali Kurdi, Vice President of the National Union for Milk Production, daily losses of all the producers reached around 30 tons of milk, which is equivalent to $20,000. Losses in the ten previous days or since the closing of the factories have exceeded $600,000.

Milk producers are individual farmers who sell their production to dairy factories to make cheese, Labneh, and yoghurt.

Milk producers called on large factories like Liban Lait, Taanayel Le Fèrmes, and Bonjus to purchase part of the production of those that have been closed.

Kurdi said that small dairy factories benefited from this situation and are purchasing each kilogram for 30 cents from milk producers. The regular price of each kilogram is 70 cents.

Iskandar Chedid, General Manager of Center Jdita, said: “We usually purchase about 17 tons of milk daily, but we stopped due to the factory closures.” He said that their losses exceeded $150,000 within ten days, because they recalled all labneh products made from milk produced by these factories.

Kurdi said that this problem could be solved if the government were to ban the use of powdered milk. A 25 kilogram package of powdered milk costs around $100. Each kilogram of powdered milk makes eight kilograms of liquid milk, so the cost of each kilogram would not exceed 30 cents. “Dairy factories sometimes prefer to purchase powdered milk to reduce their production costs,” said Kurdi.