New milk prices announced

dennis kibet

May 31, 2017 2:39 PM

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The government has moved to address the high cost of living by announcing new milk prices.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett has announced that milk prices will reduce by Sh10 effective from June 1 which is World Milk Day.

Bett said the drop resulted from government interventions to stabilise basic commodity prices that have skyrocketed due to drought.

This now means that a 500ml packet of fresh milk will now cost an average retail price of Sh55 while UHT packets of the same size will retail at Sh65.

The price of Kenya’s processed milk, at an average of Sh140 per litre, is one of the most expensive in Africa, second only to South Africa, according to a survey released early this month by the Expatistan Cost of Living Index.

Last week, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, through a special gazette notice, allowed the importation of 9,000 tonnes of duty-free powdered milk to ease the shortage

Ironically, Kenya is a major leading producer of milk in Africa, with an annual output of 5.2 billion litres.

In the past month, milk has been retailing at an average of Sh70 for long-life milk and Sh65 for whole milk.

The local market has been surviving on available stocks of powder milk from the processors and supplies from the National Food Strategic Reserve purchased by the government last year.

dennis kibet