KFL Exhorts Milk Farmers to Ignore Rumours by Blacklisted Suppliers of Inputs

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Kerala Feeds Ltd (KFL) is facing a “smear campaign” by suppliers of raw materials, its Chairman K S Indusekharan Nair said today, attributing the “false allegations” to vengeance by a lobby of suppliers blacklisted for supplying low-quality goods.

“Such efforts to defame the state-owned establishment won’t yield results. None can destroy us. In any case, profit-making is not our sole aim,” he said KFL Chairman K S Indusekharan Nair.

Despite the lockdown, the company continues to make profit in the first three months of the current financial year. “Our target for this fiscal is a turnover of Rs 600 crore. We can achieve it,” he said. “In 2019-20, we clocked a turnover of Rs 495.85 crore, which was just Rs 4.15 crore short of the target, despite a tough condition (COVID-19 outbreak and the ensuing lockdown) towards the end.”

The PSU has succeeded in steadily reducing its losses under the present government in the state from 2016. KFL’s cumulative losses had stood at Rs 73.40 crore over five years from 2012, with Rs 37.68 crore being the loss of 2016-17 alone. But in the next fiscal, the loss dipped to Rs 2.37 crore, which meant a Rs 35.31-crore dip in the loss in a single year, Nair recalled.

KFL’s loss did register a rise to Rs 15.43 crore in 2018-19, but that was owing to an unexpected setback the dairy sector suffered that year owing to the state’s biggest floods in 94 years. A series of measures by the PSU for milk farmers under the ‘Snehasparsham’ scheme and others cut the company’s income. In fact, in September 2018, KFL sold its products at a discount of Rs 100 per bag, suffering a loss of Rs 3 crore.

In 2019-20, KFL found two suppliers whose imported goods did not match the PSU’s quality standards. “We blacklisted them,” said Nair. “We are a company that could find as many as 53 suppliers when our cumulative loss stood at Rs 73.40 crore.”

Reiterating that KFL cannot compromise on quality, the chairman exhorted the dairy farmers not to go by the “rumour mills” set by a couple of “disgruntled” suppliers. “Their circulation of fake news about us can work against the entire dairy industry in the state. I am sure milk farmers in the state will not fall into the trap,” he added.

The 1995-founded KFL sticks to e-tender for raw materials, ensuring full transparency in its deals with suppliers, Nair said. “Right from the company’s gate to the production plant, we carry out quality check in four phases. Equally special is our distribution system and a new bypass protein plant,” he added.

Recently, when companies across the country remained shut to counter the spread of the coronavirus, KFL continued daily operations, though with one shift a day. “That has been restored to three. Also, our efforts seeking the intervention of  Animal Husbandry Minister Adv K Raju enabled resolving a crisis precipitated by KFL-bound inter-state lorries stranded because of restricted road transportation,” he pointed out. “Further, we launched a scheme where our products reached the farmer’s doorstep.”

KFL has played a crucial role in regulating cattle feed prices by not hiking the rates of its products in proportion to increasing expenses on raw materials. Of late, considering that 99 per cent of the raw materials for KFL come from outside Kerala and that cornstalks form its chunk, the PSU has initiated a state-wide project to grow the crop. “The first phase will be launched in Kollam shortly in association with the district panchayat,” Nair revealed. “Places in Alappuzha district are also readying fast to implement the project under the Onattukara Development Agency in association with CPCRI (Central Plantation Crops Research Institute).”

KFL, which is headquartered at Kallettumkara near Irinjalakuda in Thrissur district, needs nod from the state government to hike the price of its products beyond a point, he said.