Billing for your dairy and milk shop in Meghalaya
Milk by the litre, the farmers who bring it, and the tea stalls that pay at the month end.
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Meadows in Ri Bhoi and a market in Shillong: where milk is needed
A dairy sells to the whole district, and these two places show the households it serves.
- In Ri Bhoi's Umling block the main occupation is cultivation, so many families keep a cow or two on the same land they plough.
- In Shillong, Bara Bazaar (Iewduh) has shops for traditional Khasi materials and household items, and a dairy there sells to the people who come to shop.
Steps to carry cans up, milk that is gone by nine, and a homestay whose order changes daily
The can goes up the steps, and a half litre is spilled on the way
In a hill town the milk round climbs steps and narrow lanes. The can swings, some milk spills, the foam is poured and counted as a litre, and the next house still gets its full measure from your side. The spill is small each time, and it comes out of your pocket, never out of the customer's measure, so the steps cost you every morning.
A homestay wants milk and curd in a different amount every morning
A homestay sends its order late at night, after the curd for the morning is already set. Some nights it asks for more curd than the pots hold, some nights for none, and by morning the message is buried in the chat. At the month end it asks how many litres it had in all, and you add up messages to answer. The night you guess wrong, curd sits unsold or a guest goes without.
On some days the milk is gone by nine and the late customers are angry
Milk is not easy to find in the hills, so people queue. On a day when two of the farmers do not come, the stock is finished before the school children's mothers arrive. You find out only when the can is empty, and they will remember it the next time they choose where to go. The mothers who come at half past nine, after the school run, are the ones who walk away.
Tools for a dairy on a hill lane, with farmers on one side and tea stalls applying on the other
Low stock warnings
A warning set higher in the tourist weeks than in the quiet ones, so the can is full before the guests arrive.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the homestay and one for each tea stall, with the litres of every morning dated, so a month's total is one number. The tea stall's boy does not have to remember the number.
Sell to other businesses
A guesthouse on the hill road asks to take its weekend milk and curd from you on credit. Once you say yes, its orders stay apart from the households you serve by the litre.
The tourist months beside the quiet ones, the cold-morning litres, and two sources on two pages
What the staircase costs in foam and splash, read after a week
Count the litres in the can before the climb, and the litres on the bills after it. The foam on the poured milk is counted as a litre, so the bills always show a little less. After a week that small gap is what the staircase costs you in foam and splash.
Cold mornings and tea stalls, read from the day's litres
Any day's sales can be looked up. Open a few cold, wet mornings beside the warm ones and see how many more litres the tea stalls took. Next time the sky turns grey, you ask the farmers for a second can the evening before, not at seven. The farmers who were told early are the ones who bring the extra litre.
The co-operative's milk and the farmer's milk on two pages
If you buy part of your milk from a co-operative centre and part from farmers, make each a supplier page. The litres and rates stay apart, and at the month end you can see which source gave you more and at what cost. You can also see, at the month end, which source was cheaper.
Questions Meghalaya dairies and milk sellers ask
Guests leave a day early and the curd I set aside for them stays on my shelf. What do I do with it?
Keep the curd as its own item, and the curd that stayed is still in its count. You sell it cheaper from the same line to the next customers, and the homestay's page carries only the cups it really took.
I milk my own cows at dawn and open the shop later. Can I see yesterday's sales before I start?
Yes. Today's sales and any earlier day's are on the phone, so you can read yesterday's litres while the cows are still being milked and decide how much to take out today. The litres you took out are written beside the sales when you come back.
The river kept the farmer back for most of the wet weeks. How many litres should I ask him for next week?
Read the wet weeks in the daily report: the litres that came each morning are there. Ask for the litres that came on his best morning of the wet weeks, not for the number he promised.
Milk in Meghalaya, and a co-operative above Shillong
In 2022 the Chief Minister said Meghalaya's milk production has a 50 to 60 percent deficit, which he called a huge market for local dairy farmers.
In Upper Shillong, farmers of the Umlyngka dairy co-operative bring milk to its centre, and it is marketed through the East Khasi Hills District Co-operative Milk Union in Shillong.