Karnataka's Nandini Seeks Investigation into Alleged Price Fixing on Quick Commerce Platforms

BAMUL Requests Investigation into Deep Discounting of Milk by Quick Commerce Platforms

On March 14, the Bangalore Urban, Rural and Ramanagara District Co-operative Milk Producers' Societies Union Limited (BAMUL) submitted a representation to the Competition Commission of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking an investigation into the deep discounting of milk by quick commerce platforms.

BAMUL, one of the largest milk unions under the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) that markets the Nandini brand, has expressed concerns that such aggressive pricing could disrupt the dairy value chain and negatively impact farmer incomes. The cooperative cited a promotional campaign by Flipkart through its quick commerce service Flipkart Minutes, which advertised milk at Rs 1 per half litre as part of a customer acquisition drive.

BAMUL president and former MP DK Suresh flagged that the pricing appeared to be significantly below the economic cost of procurement, processing, packaging, transportation, cold-chain management, and retail distribution of milk. Such pricing may be supported through platform subsidies or investor-backed promotional strategies and could raise concerns under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002, which deals with abuse of dominant position.

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The cooperative warned that milk may be used as a 'loss-leader' product to attract consumers to digital platforms, where companies incur losses on one product to increase user traffic and later recover costs through cross-selling of other goods, logistics services, or advertising. This could distort the dairy value chain, affecting small retailers and traditional milk vendors, as well as neighbourhood retailers.

BAMUL argued that large digital platforms have access to investor capital and diversified digital ecosystems, enabling them to sustain deep discounting for extended periods-an advantage not available to cooperative institutions whose pricing structures are linked to farmer procurement prices and operational costs.

The cooperative has urged the Competition Commission of India to initiate an investigation into deep discounting in the sale of milk and other farmer-produced commodities by quick commerce platforms. It has also sought an examination of whether such campaigns amount to predatory pricing or abuse of dominant position, and called for regulatory safeguards to ensure essential agricultural commodities are not subjected to unsustainable loss-leader pricing strategies.