ABSTRACT
The dairy industry has a significant role for the Indian economy as well as for the rural development. For business operations in the dairy industry, the quick and safe procurement of milk from the farmer is of crucial importance. The current chapter develops a framework for evaluating the performance of procurement practices in the dairy industry. An optimum competitive procurement model has been developed through factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling techniques. The model is developed on the basis of responses collected from dairy industries in northern India. The results of hypotheses testing suggest that all the four factors (derived through factor analysis) influence the procurement performance positively. The outcome of this chapter reveals that the milk processing industry needs substantial development in procurement practices to meet the best product quality, supply chain sustainability, and food safety norms of the global market. This study is useful for the dairy industry to handle the traceability issues, execution of effective information systems, the overall quality of procured milk, build supplier trust, and hence, to achieve higher procurement performance.
