Problems + solutions + Developments

Being a start up and that too with only a passion and no biz plan in mind except that I wanted to offer as pure as possible farm produce to friends and their friends in the city leads to certain situations which hadn't been anticpated . The month of August had quiet a few glitches happening , though it made some people think that the quality of milk was inconsistent -- though homes that have been taking from us for over a year had no problem in understanding the genuiness of our problem that lead to milk curdling in a few homes .

We as all know chill the milk to 2 degrees after milking the animals and once it reaches that temperature is when we start packing it in the milk cans ..... now what happened was that on 3 consecutive days the meter showed the temperature as 2 degrees and we as normal would start the packing process but inspite of that we got reports coming in that the milk was curdling in homes towards the end of the delivery routes . On day 1 we thought it was probably due to some mistake in the cleaning of the cans and thats why some homes reported the problem . I took the boy who cleans the cans to task and made sure I stood there while he washed the cans returned on that day . Day 2 we again got similar complaints and from the same houses which kind of had me baffled but we again couldn't figure out the problem . When it happened on Day 3 we decided to get the chilling machine checked and VOILA - the meter reading it was displaying had a huge error . Instead of the temp of milk being 2 degrees as being displayed it was about 14 degrees so basically we were packing milk at 14 degrees which obviously meant that the bacteria was still multiplying which in connection with the summer heat was making the milk curdle way earlier than it should do normally . We got the machine fixed the very same day and since then no problem at all ....

This was the first big problem we experienced but Im sure it made a few people think that the quality was bad maybe due to other factors .... we have nothing to hide and thats what we stand for , the day I feel we cant mantain quality we shall close down the farm without anyone having to tell us to do so .

The other weak link that keeps getting mentioned by our member homes is of adulteration enroute by the delivery boys ..... we have tried various things but none of them have really been feasible keeping in mind that the Govt regulation state that if we package the milk then we have to pasteurise it , we have to mention the fat content which has to be 6% for full cream milk ( not possible wth cows milk unless we resort to adding milk powder like most packaged milk companies do ) , also mention the expiry etc and that would make our model either very expensive or then unfeasible to continue . Now after a long search we found a manufacturer who has gone out of his way and designed special cans for us , we should be getting the delivery of the first batch of these cans around the 10th of Oct -- hopefully these cans will satisfy this worry of a lot of our members . These cans also will be more hygenic as they will have no blind spots making it even easier to clean .

We are also looking at keeping free range chicken and also local breed of hens for their delicious eggs ... hopefully these should be on offer by Dec or maybe beginning of the New Year . We also getting more animals so will be moving over to the machine milking instead of hand milking as we do so now ...... hand milking though is better for the animals but makes us very dependent on the labor who at times can resort to blackmail ( threatening to leave in the middle of the night knowing we cant do much except give in to their demands ) !!

The next few months are gonna be interesting as we have quiet a few things lined up which should make the entire experience better for the members .... also look out for our new website which should be up a few weeks after Diwali ( in stages ) .

Fingers crossed that no more unexpected problems arise :-) !!

Cheers