A supermarket attendant arranging milk packets on the shelves [PHOTO/nation]
The dairy sector regulator has warned that milk prices will remain high for the next two months.
Although milk production has gone up by 10 per cent after the star of the rains, consumers will have to wait until early August before the prices can go down, Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) managing director Margret Kibogy has said.
“Rains have been erratic and this is the reason milk production has just increased marginally since it started raining; normally at this time of the year supplies are supposed to have normalised,” Ms Kibogy said during an interview with the Business Daily.
KDB said that milk volumes will come to stabilise at the beginning of August and that the prices might return to the Sh45 for the fresh brand and Sh50 for the long life type.
She added that the July cold season will cut production but that the impact on production will however not be big.
Prices of fresh milk have gone up from an average Sh45 in January to Sh65 at the moment, marking the steepest rise in the prices ever recorded in Kenya’s history.
Statistics from the board show that the volumes collected by processors went down by 36 per cent from from 56.44 million litres (October 2016) to 36.11 million litres (February 2017).