The Waidalice Chilling Centre Milk Suppliers Investment Cooperative has been doing well.

This was the comment made by cooperative chairman, Hirday Lakhan during their annual general meeting at Tailevu Hotel in Korovou yesterday.

“The measure of success is evident as we have noted a membership of 63 ,” Mr Lakhan said.

“Another measure of success is that our financials are improving every year like the amount of money we have had in the banks.”

He also added the cooperative had invested in other activities like the new Warehouse and were planning to invest in other worthy ventures this year.

The chairman also pointed out that the dairy industry was a major concern to all farmers.

“Area of concern is business. Business should return enough revenue for the effort and from today’s AGM we can see that farmers are still complaining about milk prices,” he said.

“Currently, we only get 74 cents (Vat Exclusive Price) per every litre which is not worth the work we do.”

He added: “We will work at getting a better price for the suppliers.”

The cooperative is also in discussions terms with the farmers on whether they would be supplying raw milk directly to Fiji Dairy Limited as they see a possibility.

Nothing has been confirmed about the direct supply of milk to Fiji Dairy yet.

The cooperative currently supplies 30% of the total milk supply base in Fiji.

“We supplied 2.4 million litres of milk in 2016 and we are working hard at increasing the supply in 2017.”

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