The Department of Special Investigation has arrested a village headman from Chumphon and his wife on charges of fixing a bid to win contracts to supply milk to schools in southern provinces.
DSI officials apprehended Piya Yamchaya, a village headman from Phato district, and his six-month pregnant wife Boonjing Pensawat while they were bidding for a contract to supply milk to local schools.
Piyawat Kingket, DSI director for special criminal cases, said the couple were suspected of bid rigging for school milk supplies in many southern provinces.
DSI officers also raided the couple's milk packaging factories to see if the milk they produced for the schools was of poor quality.
Pol Col Piyawat said Mr Piya and Ms Boonjing have supplied milk to numerous schools in the South for eight years.
They operated under the names of three separate milk factories: Cha-amHuay Sai dairy cow cooperative based in Phetchaburi, Farm Chinabanchorn milk factory in Sadao district of Songkhla province, and Nam Srichon 96 CoinThung Tako district of Chumphon.
Police claim Mr Piya and Ms Boonjing pretended to compete in bids for school milk supply contracts from tambon administration organisations.
It is alleged that in each bid one of their companies would quote a median price while the other two would quote higher.
At the Piya Car Care shop run by Mr Piya, DSI officials found rubber stamps for the three companies.
Pol Col Piyawat said officers raided the three milk factories and collected milk samples for examination.
The couple would face criminal charges if the milk was found to be substandard.
Pol Col Piyawat said the DSI found powdered milk packages at the couple's factories.
Contractors in the school milk programme must supply only fresh milk. But some add powdered milk to increase their profits.
If supplies are blended with powdered milk, the profit margin could rise to as much as four baht a pack compared to 50 satang using pure fresh milk, Pol Col Piyawat said.
The cost of producing school milk is six baht a packet.
DSI interrogator Yuthana Palabut said the couple supplied milk to more than 70 schools in Chumphon alone.They were the first people to be arrested by the DSI in its investigation into the school milk scandal.
The department is gathering information about substandard qualit y milk after schools lodged many complaints of stale supplies.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
French cheese comes to the Himalayas
When Frenchman Francois Driard decided to settle in Nepal after a decadelong love affair with the Himalayan nation, just one thing was missing - good cheese.So the 31-year-old former business writer decided to make his own.
For the past year and a half, Driard has been running a small dairy farm in the foothills of the Himalayas, producing mountain cheeses using traditional methods honed over centuries in the French Alps.
"It started out as a bit of a romantic idea - I like nature and I like food, and I had a vague idea that I might do some farming," says Driard.
"In Nepal now you can find almost everything, but non-processed cheese was missing.
"I thought it would be a good place to make quality cheese because labour is still cheap and nature is generous.We've got good rain, good milk, it's a good country for cheese."
Driard says he was also inspired by the desire to ensure traditional techniques are preserved as European consumers increasingly opt for cheaper, factory-made cheeses.
But his former career compiling reports on investment opportunities in developing countries for the likes of Business Week and the Miami Herald provided scant preparation for life as a cheese maker.
So, having rented a plot of land northwest of Kathmandu, Driard travelled to the French Alps in the summer of 2007 to learn how to make Tomme de Savoie - a semi-hard cow's milk cheese made by farmers there for centuries.
By the end of that year he had produced his first batch of Himalayan French Cheese, which is made using the traditional French method but does not qualify for the name because it is not made in the Savoie region.
The cheese is hand-made by a small team of workers on the farm before being aged for three months in an underground cellar, which has to
be air conditioned during the hot summer months to maintain the correct temperature.
"I always said I wanted to make a cheese that made you feel like you needed a glass of red wine. And it's working," Driard says of his product, which sells mainly in specialist shops and in restaurants in Kathmandu.
"People seem happy with it and they say they want more - and they want more different products as well."
The success has inspired Driard to experiment with other Western delicacies,such as French-style dried sausage and ricotta - an Italian soft cheese made from whey, a byproduct of the cheese-making process.But there have been challenges along the way.Initially, Driard bought milk in from local farmers, but he soon found the bacteria levels were too high for a cheese that is made using unpasteurised milk.
Now, he has his own cattle - a decision that brought a fresh set of problems in this majorityHindu country, where cows are considered sacred and killing them is punishable with a jail sentence.
"There's nothing you can do about it but it's a huge problem," he says, remembering the time he had to watch a sick cow die a slow and painful death rather than put her out of her misery.
"You can't slaughter the older females or the males, and every other birth you have is a male."
Nepal's notorious corruption problems also made it difficult to obtain all the necessary permits to set up a business here, until Driard appointed a local fixer to smooth over the cultural differences.
But despite the difficulties, the Frenchman is optimistic about the potential for a cheese industry in Nepal, which unlike many Asian countries already has a strong dairy tradition.
As far back as the 1950s, aid organisations began introducing Swiss cheese-making techniques to remote mountain communities here to give them a way of using up their surplus milk,and Swiss-style hard cheeses are now widely available.
More recently, farmers have also begun producing goat's cheese and mozzarella, which they sell mainly to restaurants catering for tourists and expatriates in Kathmandu.
Driard says the hard cheeses being made locally are "really quite good" but that they are sold too young because the farmers cannot afford to wait for payment.
"If they were to leave it for six months to a year, it would have an amazing flavour, at least for me. I'm not sure the locals would agree. But we could be exporting extremely high quality cheese from Nepal," he says.
Driard's ambitions include expanding his own operation - he is looking for a 6-hectare plot of land further away from the capital - and setting up a cooperative to help local farmers do more with their milk.
"In a way, Nepal is a land of opportunity.Nothing has been done yet because it is not an entrepreneurial culture," he says.
"But if you accept the system, there's so much that can be done."
For the past year and a half, Driard has been running a small dairy farm in the foothills of the Himalayas, producing mountain cheeses using traditional methods honed over centuries in the French Alps.
"It started out as a bit of a romantic idea - I like nature and I like food, and I had a vague idea that I might do some farming," says Driard.
"In Nepal now you can find almost everything, but non-processed cheese was missing.
"I thought it would be a good place to make quality cheese because labour is still cheap and nature is generous.We've got good rain, good milk, it's a good country for cheese."
Driard says he was also inspired by the desire to ensure traditional techniques are preserved as European consumers increasingly opt for cheaper, factory-made cheeses.
But his former career compiling reports on investment opportunities in developing countries for the likes of Business Week and the Miami Herald provided scant preparation for life as a cheese maker.
So, having rented a plot of land northwest of Kathmandu, Driard travelled to the French Alps in the summer of 2007 to learn how to make Tomme de Savoie - a semi-hard cow's milk cheese made by farmers there for centuries.
By the end of that year he had produced his first batch of Himalayan French Cheese, which is made using the traditional French method but does not qualify for the name because it is not made in the Savoie region.
The cheese is hand-made by a small team of workers on the farm before being aged for three months in an underground cellar, which has to
be air conditioned during the hot summer months to maintain the correct temperature.
"I always said I wanted to make a cheese that made you feel like you needed a glass of red wine. And it's working," Driard says of his product, which sells mainly in specialist shops and in restaurants in Kathmandu.
"People seem happy with it and they say they want more - and they want more different products as well."
The success has inspired Driard to experiment with other Western delicacies,such as French-style dried sausage and ricotta - an Italian soft cheese made from whey, a byproduct of the cheese-making process.But there have been challenges along the way.Initially, Driard bought milk in from local farmers, but he soon found the bacteria levels were too high for a cheese that is made using unpasteurised milk.
Now, he has his own cattle - a decision that brought a fresh set of problems in this majorityHindu country, where cows are considered sacred and killing them is punishable with a jail sentence.
"There's nothing you can do about it but it's a huge problem," he says, remembering the time he had to watch a sick cow die a slow and painful death rather than put her out of her misery.
"You can't slaughter the older females or the males, and every other birth you have is a male."
Nepal's notorious corruption problems also made it difficult to obtain all the necessary permits to set up a business here, until Driard appointed a local fixer to smooth over the cultural differences.
But despite the difficulties, the Frenchman is optimistic about the potential for a cheese industry in Nepal, which unlike many Asian countries already has a strong dairy tradition.
As far back as the 1950s, aid organisations began introducing Swiss cheese-making techniques to remote mountain communities here to give them a way of using up their surplus milk,and Swiss-style hard cheeses are now widely available.
More recently, farmers have also begun producing goat's cheese and mozzarella, which they sell mainly to restaurants catering for tourists and expatriates in Kathmandu.
Driard says the hard cheeses being made locally are "really quite good" but that they are sold too young because the farmers cannot afford to wait for payment.
"If they were to leave it for six months to a year, it would have an amazing flavour, at least for me. I'm not sure the locals would agree. But we could be exporting extremely high quality cheese from Nepal," he says.
Driard's ambitions include expanding his own operation - he is looking for a 6-hectare plot of land further away from the capital - and setting up a cooperative to help local farmers do more with their milk.
"In a way, Nepal is a land of opportunity.Nothing has been done yet because it is not an entrepreneurial culture," he says.
"But if you accept the system, there's so much that can be done."
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