School milk tender to be renewed Nov 22

ANKARA

DHA photo

The Agriculture Ministry announced yesterday that a tender as part of the School Milk Project, which was held last week and canceled, will be held on Nov. 22.

The tender was held on Nov. 12 to settle the purchase of around 300 million boxes of milk for schools around the country. The tender was not approved by the ministry due to higher-than-expected bid unit prices.

The ministry will renew the tender, which will then enable the gallons of milk to be distributed to state schools by the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic years’ second semester.

Companies that are currently registered in the ministry’s Food Security Information System are invited to tender for the project.

The tender divides the country’s seven regions into four zones with the carefully planned logistics of the large-scale delivery in mind. Last week, Ak Gıda offered 176.7 million Turkish Liras for the tender while the Dimes-Pınar joint venture submitted a 177.6-million-liras bid. Also, there were other bidders that submitted offers targeted at only one one zone or multiple zones.

However, the ministry said the average bid unit prices across all zones was at 45.38 kuruş in the early stages of the tender process in January, however its reaching at present 57.53 kuruş, equivalent to a 27 percent rise, “wasn’t normal.”