The day the chiller worked again.

Over time, the cooperative evolved. What began as a standalone cooperative later expanded through a merger, bringing other cooperatives under one umbrella, including Cheki Milk Cooperative and Bura Geberetsion Milk Cooperative. The numbers clearly show this growth: “Before the merger we had 447 members,” Berehane explains. “After one year, we became 565 members.”

The cooperative collects milk from its members and sells it to customers through formal contracts. For Berehane, the strategy is simple and practical: deliver fair service, build trust, and more people will join. “We collect milk from members,” she explains, “and by giving good service, we encourage more people to become members.”

To join, a farmer must own cows and be able to supply milk. Members buy shares and register officially. “The smallest share used to be 20 shares,” she says, “but we amended it to 25 shares as the minimum.” The cooperative also charges a registration payment, which increased as the cooperative grew.

The cooperative’s operations now run at a much larger scale than before. Berehane remembers the early days: “Before, we collected around 37 litres per day.” Today, at peak times, the cooperative reaches as high as 3,325 litres in a day across its collection points. The cooperative is also ambitious: “We plan to expand to the whole district in Debre Berhan,” she says. “We want to collect up to 10,000 litres per day.”

On the capital side, Berehane cites the cooperative’s recorded capital at ETB 4,787,152 (pre-audit). The cooperative also provides jobs: it currently has 20 permanent workers supporting its daily operations. Ethiopia’s National Dairy Development Strategy (NDDS) 2022–2031 estimates annual milk production from cows and camels at about 7.1 billion litres, roughly 60 litres per person per year, well below the WHO reference level of 200 litres, and sets a goal to reach 28.4 billion litres by 2031. It also flags constraints such as feed and animal health gaps, weak infrastructure, and quality and value-addition challenges, which is why routines like testing milk on arrival and chilling it quickly matter for reducing losses and keeping market linkages reliable.

Berehane identifies Garden Dairy as one of the cooperative’s major customers, alongside other local buyers who purchase milk in bulk.  “Garden Dairy has been working with us since the time we started receiving 50 litres per day,” she says. 

The partnership has lasted for years, and Garden Dairy continues to secure the supply contract through the cooperative’s bidding process, where buyers submit offers and the cooperative awards the contract based on agreed terms such as price, reliability, and quality requirements.