Billing for your dairy or milk booth in Karnataka
The morning's packets counted, every household's milk card written, and no litre lost between.
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A household's month in one line a day
What the van brought, and what is left in the fridge at nine
When the packets arrive in the morning, note what came in. By nine you can open the phone and see how many of each kind are left, instead of opening the fridge door and counting by hand. The curd and buttermilk order for tomorrow is then written from what is left, in the same few minutes.
The old packet and the new packet, each with its own count
Keep the earlier size and the new size as two items while both are in the fridge. Each sale takes the right one off the stock and bills the right rate, so no card has to be rewritten and no customer is charged for a packet she did not take.
Curd, buttermilk, ghee and the sweet box, read together after Dasara
In Dasara week customers take curd, buttermilk and ghee, and many also carry home a box of Nandini sweets. Keep the sweet box as its own item beside the dairy lines. When the week is over you see how many boxes left with the ghee and what the curd did in the same days, and next year's festival order is written from those days.
The milk-producing and milk-drinking districts of Karnataka
Milk comes from the villages around a district and is drunk in its towns, and the district sets the pace of the booth.
- Silk is mainly grown in Mysuru district, in a state that makes nearly 70% of India's mulberry silk, and Mysuru silk is sold through KSIC; the city's booths also serve its festival crowds.
- Tumakuru district has 9 APMC market yards, at Tumakuru, Tiptur, Gubbi, Sira, Huliyar, Pavagada, Madhugiri, Kunigal and Turuvekere, so a booth in any of these towns sits among traders who begin early.
- Belagavi has 24 sugar factories and 200 foundries producing over 70,000 tons of automotive and industrial castings, and a milk booth there serves the shifts that start in the early hours.
- In Ballari, 75% of workers depend on farming, in a district that also holds 25% of India's iron ore reserves and has JSW's Vijayanagar steel works at Toranagallu.
Why the milk card and the morning van never quite agree
A bigger packet at a new rate, and two kinds in one fridge
Nandini half-litre and one-litre milk packets were made 50 ml bigger in 2024, with the price raised by Rs 2, because farmers were supplying more milk. For some days the fridge of a booth holds packets of both sizes. The monthly milk cards were written at the old rate, regular customers ask whether they are paying for the bigger packet, and the answer depends on which packet the boy picked up at five in the morning.
One van before dawn, and a rainy morning's guess fixed until the next
The van comes once, before dawn, and there is no second van at noon. On a rainy morning you guess how many packets the street will want, and the guess is fixed until the next dawn. If it was low, you turn customers away by eight; if it was high, the extra packets sit in the fridge and you find them at nine.
Full cream, toned and double toned: the customer who changes grade
A household takes a richer milk when a guest is staying, and a thinner one when money is tight. The booth keeps several grades in the fridge, and the boy at the counter reaches for whichever packet is nearest. At the month end the bill for the milk does not match the packets that were handed over, because the rate of one grade was charged for another.
Tools for a counter that opens before five
Orders to suppliers
The evening order for tomorrow's milk, curd and buttermilk packets, written from what is still in the fridge at closing.
Daily reports
How many packets of each kind went by nine o'clock, kept day by day, so a rainy Monday and a festival Saturday can be compared.
Low stock warnings
A warning on the curd pouches or the ghee packs that are down to the last few, while the van can still be asked for more.
Questions Karnataka dairy and milk booth owners ask
A household's monthly card was written at the old rate, and she has taken the bigger packet since. How is the card read?
Nandini made its half-litre and one-litre packets 50 ml bigger in 2024, and dearer. Lines before the change carry the old packet at its rate, lines after carry the new one at its rate. The card adds both, and she can see the day the packet changed.
How do I know how many curd pouches to order for tomorrow?
Look at the stock when you close. What is left in the fridge tells you how many to order, and the report for the same weekday last week shows how many were sold.
The booth sells full cream and toned milk. Can I keep them as separate items?
Yes. Each grade is its own item with its own rate and count, so the bill charges the right rate for the packet that was handed over.
One crore litres a day and a Dasara sweet box
Karnataka Milk Federation (Nandini) reached one crore litres of milk bought from farmers a day in July 2024, through 15 milk unions and 16,000 milk growers' societies. The packet on a booth's shelf has travelled from one of those village societies.
A dairy booth already has customers at its door every morning, and in the festival weeks the same household buys its milk and a box of sweets on one visit. The booth has the milk, the curd and the ghee on the shelf, so a few boxes beside them cost it little to add and sell to people who are there anyway. Nandini's own sweets sold well in the 2025 Dasara and Deepavali weeks, but a booth does not need that scale: a few boxes beside the milk are enough.