Boycotting Rewa Dairy products is not the answer to combating increased prices for local butter, the Fiji Chamber of Commerce says.
President Taito Waradi said a boycott was the wrong way of managing the troubled company.
Mr Waradi said boycotting Rewa Butter would bounce back on ordinary customers since it would force the importation of foreign butters.
"If we boycott, we will have to import butter from overseas and that is very expensive," he said.
"The very people who will suffer are the ones boycotting.
"It will affect more ordinary people."
Mr Waradi was reacting to a non-government organisation's call for people to boycott Rewa butter next month after it increased prices by as much as 42 cents from Friday.
Fiji Council of Social Services executive director Hassan Khan said the boycott would send a strong message to the company.
Mr Waradi said the boycott would only add to an already over stressed plant which had gone past its used by date.
Mr Waradi said Rewa Dairy was still using old machines in this technologically-advanced era.
"The plant needs urgent upgrading and milk production to immediately increase."
Mr Waradi said a study carried out by an American specialist, Fiji produced an average of four litres of milk per cattle per day.
The study showed a New Zealand farmer produced 40 litres of milk per cattle per day while farmers of Israel and America produced as much as 60 litres of milk from a single cow.
Mr Waradi said authorities at Rewa Dairy had the information with them and should have acted earlier to avoid the "crisis we are facing now".
"The authorities knew about the information to improve the industry," he said.
Mr Waradi said there was a need for the Government to step in and restructure the industry.
"The livelihood of so many people will be affected if government doesn't play its role."
"It's damage control time and the multiplier effect is serious if we don't."
Mr Waradi said government should institute an immediate restructure and reform programme like it did for the sugar industry.
