SHOCKING! Vendors adding chemicals to preserve milk.

Chances are that the milk you just bought from your favourite vendor or hawker might have been laced with chemicals.

About 60% of milk being sold to the public is adulterated and is unfit for human consumption as some unscrupulous milk hawkers and vendors are adding preservatives such as hydrogen peroxide and formalin to prolong the shelf life of milk.

Formalin is used to preserve bodies in mortuaries while hydrogen peroxide is a preservative meant to kill bacteria and is a serious health risk that may cause cancer.

According to health experts, when hydrogen peroxide is added to milk, it kills the bacteria and stops milk from getting sour. There have been reports too of some hawkers using formalin to make the milk stay 'fresh' longer, against health regulations.

Some milk hawkers are said to be colluding with some mortuary attendants to source the chemicals from hospitals at a low price and mix it with the milk. With this, the milk can even stay for a week without going bad.

Kenya’s dairy production sector is characterised by a huge number of small-scale farmers who make up 70-80% of the total milk production. A recent survey by the dairy board revealed that about 4 billion liters are produced at the farm level in Kenya annually with nearly 80% of it sold raw to consumers in rural and urban areas.

The country has 47 registered milk processors but only 27 are operational. Brookside, New KCC and Githunguri dairies are the dominant players in the market controlling more than 70% of the processed milk.