KOCHI: A few dealers of the public sector undertaking Meat Products of India (MPI) are planning to give up dealership, alleging mismanagement by the company in the supply of stock, pricing of the products and commission for dealers.
The dealers’ association members allege they have made several complaints about the issues, but no action was taken.Dealers said they were struggling to survive as the operational cost of outlets does not match with the income from it. A small outlet can be run without losses only if there is a minimum business of `80,000 a month.
The business does not go above Rs 30,000-35,000, they said. “There should be uninterrupted power supply to the outlet to ensure quality of the frozen meat products,” Suresh M K, president of the association, said.
He said pricing of MPI products was not matching with the prevailing local market prices. “There is a huge difference in the price of products. While 1 kg of MPI mutton costs `630, price of mutton in the market ranges from `480-500. The price of MPI beef is `280 a kg while in the market, it is `260-270. Pork is priced at `360 a kg and its market price is between `280-300. Customers return from the outlet without buying anything when they notice the price difference,” Suresh said. Dealers have no complaint on the quality of products. They are of the opinion the company can prosper if pricing is revised.“With sales volume coming down by the day, dealers are left with no option but to close the outlets,” he said.
A S Bijulal, managing director of MPI, however dismissed the dealers’ allegations and said the company was on the path of further growth. “Dealers are given the best commissions. They get 12 per cent commission even though profit for the company is just 6 per cent. This means, if there are sales worth `1 crore, `12 lakh goes to the dealers even if only `6 lakh is credited to the company’s account,” Bijulal said.
He said the agitating dealers do not have good sales. Some of these dealers do business of 3-4 tonnes of MPI products annually.
“The records show some of these dealers have sales below 1 tonne and sometimes as low as 400 kg a year,” he said.
Referring to the price, Bijulal said MPI could not supply products at cheaper rates as the company distributes good-quality products. “As MPI is a public sector company in the food processing sector, we do not compromise onquality. Products are prepared from the meat of healthy animals slaughtered under the supervision of veterinary doctors and the meat is scientifically processed,” he said.
Bijulal said if a customer buys a kg of meat from the MPI outlet, he/she can be assured of its quality, while there is not quality check on meat available at the local markets.