Sans its buffalo sheds and dairy processing infrastructure, the state dairy development department will have milk cooperative Mahananda sell a portion of its milk under the Aarey brand.
Mumbai’s iconic milk brand ‘Aarey’, a staple in households for several decades since Independence, is making a comeback. Sans its buffalo sheds and dairy processing infrastructure, the state dairy development department will have milk cooperative Mahananda sell a portion of its milk under the Aarey brand.
“We have written to Mahananda to start processing milk for the Aarey brand in their plant in Goregaon,’’ said state dairy development secretary N Ramaswami. “Mahanada processes 80,000 litres of milk a day, and we have has asked them to process an additional 25,000 litres of milk to be sold as Aarey milk,’’ said Ramaswami.
While Aarey is a state-owned brand, Mahananda is a milk cooperative run by the state dairy development department until 2024. Operating from a plot given by the state government in Aarey Milk Colony, Mahananda is now under the administrative control of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), a central government undertaking.
The Aarey brand has a special place in Mumbai’s history and in the hearts of Mumbaiites. Launched in 1949 to streamline milk production and overcome milk shortages after Independence, the state government handed over a large portion of forest land in Goregaon to the then Bombay’s Dairy Development Board, for buffalo sheds and milk processing plants. This transformed into Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon and became a primary centre of the city’s milk production, sharing its boundaries with Mumbai’s green lung, the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and with Film City.
However, in 2012, the state started outsourcing the production of Aarey products to private companies, which earned a royalty from their sale. The plan ran into rough weather and these companies altogether stopped producing Aarey products in 2022.
A few years ago, the state dairy development department stopped processing milk at its other two centres as well, at Kurla and Worli. The milk processing plants were sold as scrap last year. Recently, the Kurla dairy land was given to Navbharat Mega Developers Private Ltd (NMDPL) to house slum-dwellers from Dharavi, while the state plans to convert its Worli dairy into an iconic structure under a new scheme.
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