Dairy Supply Chain of Bangladesh: Assessing Logistics, Cold Chain, Processing, Quality Control and Challenges

Abstract

Bangladesh’s dairy industry plays an important role in food security, rural livelihoods, nutrition, and agricultural development. However, despite increasing milk production and the presence of established dairy processors, the sector continues to face significant supply-chain challenges involving production, milk collection, quality control, chilling, transportation, processing, distribution, and market access. This study examines the major operational, financial, technological, and structural challenges affecting the dairy supply chain of Bangladesh and evaluates their implications for milk quality, cost, availability, farmer profitability, and overall supply-chain efficiency. The study uses a mixed method, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 22 dairy farmers from different parts of Bangladesh. Secondary data was collected from research articles, government publications, institutional reports and industry sources . The analysis was made through thematic analysis of farmer experiences, descriptive statistics, percentage based analysis, basic logistics and cost calculations and comparative analysis of the processing facilities of PRAN, Aarong Dairy Akij Dairy and Milk Vita. The results show that high cost of feed and health care, poor access to improved breeds and machinery, lack of technical support, dependence on intermediaries, poor market visibility, unreliable electricity, transportation challenges and lack of chilling facilities are the impediments to performance at farm level and supply chain level. The quality assessment also indicates risk of high milk temperature, poor hygiene and testing practices, mastitis, abnormal milk and poor traceability. Large dairy processors have high processing capacities but their overall scale is constrained by under-utilisation and weaknesses in upstream collection, cold chain and logistics. Improving Bangladesh’s dairy sector requires an integrated supply-chain approach, including more efficient transportation, strategically located cold-chain infrastructure, stronger quality control, better utilization of processing, training and access to technology for farmers, more equitable market mechanisms, and better coordination among supply-chain stakeholders.