Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Annamalai today (20 November) came down heavily on the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government for its decision to discontinue the popular Green Magic packet of Aavin milk from 25 November and encourage customers to shift to the purple coloured Delite variety.

While the fat content in the Green Magic variety is 4.5 per cent, the Delite variety has a fat content of 3.5 per cent.

According to a report by The New Indian Express, the move is a cost-cutting measure by Aavin and the maximum retail price for both varieties would be Rs 44 per litre, while cardholders would get it at a rate of Rs 42 per litre.

Regarding the market share of the variety, the report stated that it constituted 40 per cent of the 14.75 lakh litres of milk supplied by Aavin in Chennai.

Further, it stated that according to documents accessed by the newspaper, Aavin spent Rs 65-70 crore every month to purchase better for reconstituting its milk as the fat content is lower than that of private brands and that this was needed to meet standards set by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), i.e, the fat content in toned milk, standardised milk and full cream milk should be 3 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Annamalai wrote, “Tamil Nadu Government’s Aavin Milk Company has decided to stop the sale of green packet milk, which has been in use for the last forty years. This is strongly condemned. The decision to stop the sale of green packet milk with 4.5% fat content and to sell purple packet milk with 3.5% fat content is an act of cheating the public.

“An orange packet of milk, which should already have 6% fat content, was found to have 4.79% fat content in a test carried out at a FSSAI approved laboratory. We have attached this test report for the Minister’s consideration.

"The corrupt DMK government is deliberately playing with the development of children who depend on Aavin company's milk by reducing the fat content.

"Also, I urge the Tamil Nadu government to immediately stop deceiving the public by reducing the fat content of milk and not reducing the price. It should provide quality milk at the price paid by the public."