Billing for your dairy shop in Punjab
The morning litres, the monthly milk account and the ghee by the kilo, all on your phone.
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From the dawn can to the lassi counter at noon
Every size and topping of lassi as its own line, set once
Make sweet lassi and salted lassi items with a half glass and a full glass each, and the malai a small item of its own. Put the rates in once in the morning. A helper who picks the glass and the topping gets the right amount without asking you.
Winter butter and summer lassi, read from your own days
Every sale is a bill, and the daily report keeps every day. In the week the saag arrives and the butter turns, the report shows how much white butter went and how much stayed in the shop. In the first hot week it shows the curd that sat against the lassi that went by noon. The kulhads, the butter and the curd each have their own line, so the one you over-bought is easy to see.
The farmer knows Verka's number, so the talk starts from his litres
Farmers know what the big cooperative pays for the fat in their milk. When you pay at the fortnight, open his page first: the mornings he brought, litre by litre. The talk about the rate starts from the litres, not from memory.
Why the milk notebook of a Punjab dairy never agrees on the first
A half glass, a full glass and a topping of malai
On a hot afternoon the lassi counter sells a half glass, a full steel glass, sweet or salted, and some people want malai or dry fruit on top. Each of these has its own rate. At noon, with five people shouting, your helper rings up the full glass for a half, and you find it only when the cash is short.
Butter in winter, lassi in summer, and a wrong guess both times
In the cold months people come for white butter and fresh paneer to go with the saag and the makki di roti. In the heat they want lassi and chaas by the glass, and curd by the bowl. You buy milk for one season and find yourself holding the wrong stock in the next. Nothing records what sold on which day, so every year you guess again. The saag season is short, and the shop that holds butter for a week too long loses it.
Three farmers at dawn, three different cans
Some of your milk comes from farmers who bring their cans in the dark, and you pay them every fortnight. Each says he brought more than you remember. Without a line for each morning's litres you pay on trust, and the one who is quietest is usually the one who loses.
Where Punjab's milk and its fodder come from
Milk in Punjab moves between farms, dairies and towns, and the districts show how.
- Patiala district makes vanaspati ghee, power cables, bicycles and dairy products; large units such as HUL and Bunge are at Rajpura.
- Irrigated (borewell) fields in Sangrur follow a rice-wheat farming system, according to the PAU Krishi Vigyan Kendra.
Tools that fit a dairy counter in Punjab
Credit book (khata)
The dhaba that takes curd by the can and pays at the month's end gets a page of its own, with a bill for every can.
Daily reports
Litres, lassi and butter, day by day, so a hot week or a cold one can be opened next year and compared.
Orders to suppliers
An order for kulhads and lassi glasses before the summer, with what arrived noted against the order, so a short box is seen before the first hot afternoon.
UPI payments
At noon five people call for lassi at once and one wants a half glass. The QR code on the counter lets each pay for his own glass on his phone while the next one is being poured.
Questions a Punjab dairy owner asks
The lassi is churned in one lot and sold by the half glass in the rush. How do I know when to churn again?
Note how many half glasses one churn gave on the first day. Then read the half-glass count in the rush, and churn again as it nears that number.
The dhaba takes curd by the kilo and a house takes it by the litre. How do I read each across the week?
Each page reads in its own unit: the dhaba's in kilos, a line a day, and the house's in litres. At the week's end read each page down in its unit; there is no sum of the two to work out.
A farmer comes back a week later and shows I paid him short for one morning. How do I correct his page?
Add a new line on his page for the difference, with today's date. The old line stays as it was, so the page shows the first count and the correction, and the next fortnight's payment follows from both.
Verka and the Punjab milk shelf
Verka, the Milkfed brand, sells pouch milk, ghee, table butter, paneer, dahi, lassi, kheer and indigenous sweets across Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast. A dairy shop in Punjab sells many of the same things loose, by the litre and the kilo. A customer who reads the Verka pouch can ask what yours costs, and the answer is on your own rate list.
Verka says it paid milk producers up to Rs 710 per kg of fat in FY 2022-23. A dairy that buys from farmers can note what it pays each one, so a farmer's rate is written down and not remembered.