Githunguri Dairy Farmers Co-operative Society made a Sh100 million loss during the 2015-16 financial year.
Speaking during an AGM in Githunguri on Saturday, chairman Charles Mukora said turnover reduced from Sh7.2 billion to Sh7.1 billion due to flooding of milk in the market.
Githunguri is the third-largest producer of milk products. It sells products under its Fresha brand. “The weather during the last year was good. There was a lot of rain, causing a glut. Farmers brought in more milk and there was a problem in sales,” Mukora said. He said competitors are focussed on selling powdered milk.
Mukora said some employees were colluding with members to inflate prices.
“The biggest challenge we had was our staff colluding with members to steal. Twenty-three members were paid Sh2.7 million in a month. This hurt turnover. There are also some members who adulterated milk with water, which lowers the quality,” he said.
Mukora said the society used to collect more than 700kg of milk cream, but this has reduced to 250kg because of adulteration. “We have put measures to curb the adulteration of milk as we will tell each farmer how many litres to supply us with,” he said.
