The delicious prasad and laddus of the famous Tirupati temple which was prepared with one of the important ingredients, that was Nandini Ghee, will no longer taste the flavour of this Ghee from now onwards. 50 years long association of Karnataka Milk Federation KMF with Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams TTD might have come to an end. The Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Andhra Pradesh has given its ghee tender to a company other than KMF that is providing them ghee to make laddus at a cheaper price. As the milk price hike has been announced from August 1, the ghee prices have also increased. Pertinent to mention that KMF used to provide up to 70% ghee to TTD for making laddus. Seeing the 20% ghee procurement price difference of Nandini as compared to other vendors, TTD has come to this decision and denied obtaining ghee from the most preferred brand Nandini which is selling ghee at the price of Rs. 470/- per kg.
This is not the first time, earlier also KMF stopped the supply of ghee to TTD in 2015 and 2019 after losing out competition in the tender bid. LBP Bheema Naik, the KMF chairperson told the media that we were supplying ghee at the price of Rs. 392 per kg to TTD but now the price has increased to Rs. 470/- per kg. In the market 1 kg. ghee packet costs Rs. 610 and a bottle is priced at Rs. 620/- per kg. That’s why due to price hikes we have stopped the supply of ghee to TTD. TTD wanted us to supply it at a low price or in a similar range that the other vendors were offering, he said. He added that this could impact our farmers and they would have suffered with heavy losses. To protect them and in their interest, we stopped the supply.Naik claimed, “Owing to the good quality and chemical preservative-free fresh Nandini product, TTD bought ghee from KMF from 2019 to 2022 with a whopping 345 tonnes at Rs. 392 per kg. even though KMF had lost the tender. Still, we can supply the ghee to Tirupati Devasthanams if the TTD authorities are ready to procure at our price range offered.”