THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Milma) will roll out a mobile milk vending unit on a trial basis on Monday.Besides reducing plastic waste, the move would also distribute milk in quantities lesser that the now available minimum of half-litre packets.Milma has procured a mobile unit to distribute milk to housing colonies and places with high demand for milk, Kallada Ramesh , chairman of Thiruvananthapuram Regional Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Ltd, said."Milk available in packets are subject to temperature changes during transportation and also when vendors place them outside refrigerators. Distributing through vending units helps in maintaining its quality," he said.Areas such as Karimadom Colony and Rajaji Nagar Colony would initially benefit from the mobile vending unit , Satyanarayanan, marketing manager of Milma Thiruvananthapuram region, said."People might not always need 500 millilitre of milk. Those purchasing from vending machine can buy even for Rs 5, which will be the minimum rate of purchase. Like tanking up from petrol pumps using available money, people can buy milk," he said.Milk would be sold for Re 1 less by excluding the packaging charge.Besides thickly populated housing colonies, Milma was also planning to take mobile vending units to places such as Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple, which purchases around 500 to 1,000 litres of milk a day."This will also be convenient for hotels," Satyanarayanan said.If found successful, the scheme would be extended by purchasing more units.The project was earlier experimented in Kollam. Milma decided to try it in the city considering the higher number of consumers.Milma was also planning to use biodegradable materials for packaging. A discussion has been on with a Hyderabad-based firm, which offered a product that would be biodegradedwithin six months.If found successful, Milma would try it instead of low-density polyethylene, a non-biodegradable material.

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