Amul

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Indian dairy cooperative. For the ancient city of Amul
along the Oxus, see Trkmenabat. For the city in Iran, see Amol.
Amul Amulcompany.jpg
Type
Cooperative
Industry
Dairy/FMCG
Founded
1946
Headquarters
Anand, India
Key people
Chairman, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF)
Products
See complete products listing
Revenue
Increase US$3.4 billion (2014 15)
Number of employees
750 employees of Marketing Arm & 3.6 million milk producer members[1]
Parent GCMMF [1]
Slogan The Taste of India
Website
www.amul.com
The Amul Plant at Anand showing the milk silos
Amul is an Indian dairy cooperative, based at Anand in the state of Gujarat, Ind
ia.[2]
Formed in 1946, it is a brand managed by a cooperative body, the Gujarat Co-oper
ative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today is jointly ownned by 3
.6 million milk producers in Gujarat.[3]
Amul spurred India's White Revolution, which made the country the world's larges
t producer of milk and milk products.[4] In the process Amul became the largest
food brand in India and has ventured into markets overseas.
Dr Verghese Kurien, founder-chairman of the GCMMF for more than 30 years (1973 200
6), is credited with the success of Amul.[5]
Contents
1 History
2 About GCMMF
3 The three-tier "Amul Model"
4 Products
5 UHT products and impact
6 Any Time Milk (ATM) Machine
7 Advertising
8 In popular culture
9 References
10 External links
History
Amul-operative registered on 14 December 1946 as a response to the exploitation
of marginal milk producers by traders or agents of the only existing dairy, the
Polson dairy, in the small city distances to deliver milk, which often went sour
in summer, to Polson. The prices of milk were arbitrarily determined. Moreover,
the government had given monopoly rights to Polson to collect milk from mikka a
nd supply it to Bombay city.[6][7]
Angered by the unfair trade practices, the farmers of Kaira approached Sardar Va
llabhbhai Patel under the leadership of local farmer leader Tribhuvandas K. Pate
l. He advised them to form a cooperative and supply milk directly to the Bombay

Milk Scheme instead of Polson (who did the same but gave them low prices).[8] He
sent Morarji Desai to organise the farmers. In 1946, the milk farmers of the ar
ea went on a strike which led to the setting up of the cooperative to collect an
d process milk.[7] Milk collection was decentralized, as most producers were mar
ginal farmers who could deliver, at most, 1 2 litres of milk per day. Cooperatives
were formed for each village, too.[9]
The cooperative was further developed and managed by Dr.Verghese Kurien with H.M
. Dalaya. Dalaya's innovation of making skim milk powder from buffalo milk (for
the first time in the world) and a little later, with Kurien's help, making it o
n a commercial scale,[10] led to the first modern dairy of the cooperative at An
and, which would compete against established players in the market. Kurien's bro
ther-in-law K.M. Philip sensitized Kurien to the needs of attending to the finer
points of marketing, including the creation and popularization of a brand. This
led to the search for an attractive brand name. In a brainstorming session, a c
hemist who worked in the dairy laboratory suggested Amul, which came from the Sa
nskrit word "amulya", which means "priceless" and "denoted and symbolised the pr
ide of swadeshi production."[11]
The trio's (T. K. Patel, Kurien and Dalaya's) success at the cooperative's dairy
soon spread to Anand's neighbourhood in Gujarat. Within a short span, five unio
ns in other districts
Mehsana, Banaskantha, Baroda, Sabarkantha and Surat
were s
et up.[7] To combine forces and expand the market while saving on advertising an
d avoid competing against each other, the GCMMF, an apex marketing body of these
district cooperatives, was set up in 1973. The Kaira Union, which had the brand
name Amul with it since 1955, transferred it to GCMMF.[12]
In 1999, it was awarded the "Best of all" Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award.[1
3]
Adding to the success, Dr. Madan Mohan Kashyap (faculty Agricultural and Enginee
ring Department, Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana), Dr. Bondurant (visiti
ng faculty) and Dr Feryll (former student of Dr Verghese Kurien), visited the Am
ul factory at Anand as a research team headed by Dr. Bheemsen & Shivdayal Pathak
(ex-director of the Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute) in the 19
60s. A milk pasteurization system at the Research Centre of Punjab Agricultural
University (PAU) Ludhiana was then formed under the guidance of Kashyap. The tec
hnological developments at Amul have subsequently spread to other parts of India
.
About GCMMF
The GCMMF is the largest food products marketing organisation of India. It is th
e apex organisation of the dairy cooperatives of Gujarat. It is the exclusive ma
rketing organisation for products under the brand name of Amul and Sagar.[1] Ove
r the last five and a half decades, dairy cooperatives in Gujarat have created a
n economic network that links more than 3.1 million village milk products with m
illions of consumers in India. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd
. (GCMMF), is India's largest food product marketing organisation with annual tu
rnover (2014 15) US$3.4 billion. Its daily milk procurement is approx 14.85 millio
n lit per day from 18,536 village milk cooperative societies, 17 member unions c
overing 33 districts, and 3.37 million milk producer members. More than 70% of t
he members are small or marginal farmers and landless labourers including a size
able population of tribal folk and people belonging to the scheduled castes.[1]
The three-tier "Amul Model"
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The Amul Model is a three-tier cooperative structure. This structure consists of

a dairy cooperative society at the village level affiliated to a milk union at

the district level which in turn is federated into a milk federation at the stat
e level. Milk collection is done at the village dairy society, milk procurement
and processing at the District Milk Union and milk products marketing at the sta
te milk federation. The structure was evolved at Amul in Gujarat and thereafter
replicated all over the country under the Operation Flood programme. It is known
as the 'Amul Model' or 'Anand Pattern' of dairy cooperatives.
Products
A can of AMUL cow ghee
Amul's product range includes milk powders, milk, butter, ghee, cheese, dahi, yo
ghurt, buttermilk, chocolate, ice cream, cream, shrikhand, paneer, gulab jamuns,
flavoured milk, basundi and others. Amul PRO is a recently launched brown bever
age. In January 2006, Amul launched India's first sports drink, Stamina.[14]
Amul offers Mithai Mate which competes with Milkmaid by Nestle.[citation needed]
In August 2007, Amul introduced Kool Koko, a chocolate milk brand extending its
product offering in the milk products segment. Other Amul brands are Amul Kool,
a low-calorie thirst quenching drink; Masti Butter Milk; and Kool Cafe, ready to
drink coffee.
Amul's icecreams are made from milk fat, instead of from vegetable fat.[citation
needed]
Amul's sugar-free Pro-Biotic Ice-cream won The International Dairy Federation Ma
rketing Award for 2007.[citation needed]
UHT products and impact
Over the years Amul has been witnessing growth in this portfolio,with the segmen
t growing at 53%,[15] Long life UHT products for urban populations, like Amul Ta
aza,which are packed in Tetra Pak cartons,which undergoes UHT treatment to remov
e all harmful micro-organisms while retaining the nutrition in the milk. Amul se
lls around 4-500,000 litres of UHT milk and other value added products per day a
nd forecast this demand to continue growing at 25%.The UHT products have enabled
Amul to position itself as the market leader in packaged milk segment without t
he need of maintaining cold supply chains.[16]
Any Time Milk (ATM) Machine
Amul has installed a "Any Time Milk" machine which dispenses a milk pouch, at An
and's Amul Dairy. Amul plans to install six such ATMss in Anand. According to Dr
. K Rathnam, MD of Amul Dairy, Amul wants to add a whole range of dairy products
, which could be dispensed through these machines.[17]
Advertising
In 1966, Amul hired Sylvester, then managing director of the advertising agency
AS to design an ad campaign for Amul Butter. daCunha designed a campaign as seri
es of hoardings with topical ads, relating to day-to-day issues.[18] It was popu
lar and earned a Guinness world record for the longest running ad campaign in th
e world. In the 1980s, cartoon artist Kumar Morey and script writer Bharat Dabho
lkar had been involved with sketching the Amul ads; the latter rejected the tren
d of using celebrities in advertisement campaigns. Dabholkar credited chairman V
erghese Kurien with creating a free atmosphere that fostered the development of
the ads.[19]
Despite encountering political pressure on several occasions, daCunha's agency h
as made it a policy of not backing down. Some of the more controversial Amul ads
include one commenting on the Naxalite uprising in West Bengal, on the Indian A
irlines employees strike, and one depicting the Amul butter girl wearing a Gandh
i cap.[18]

In 2013, Amul tweeted a picture featuring the Amul butter girl, implying that 'f
reedom of choice' died in '2013', in opposition to the Supreme Court of India ov
erruling the judgment of Delhi High Court and criminalising homosexuality again.
[20]
In popular culture
The establishment of Amul is known as White Revolution.
The White Revolution inspired the notable Indian film-maker Shyam Benegal to bas
e his film Manthan (1976) on it. It starred Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, Naseerud
din Shah and Amrish Puri. The film was financed by over five lakh rural farmers
in Gujarat who contributed Rs 2 each to its budget. Upon its release, these farm
ers went in truckloads to watch 'their' film, making it a commercial success.[21
][22] Manthan was chosen for the 1977 National Film Award for Best Feature Film
in Hindi.
References
Organisation :: Amul
The Taste of India. Amul (2015-05-14). Retrieved on 201
5-11-29.
Alexander Fraser Laidlaw. Cooperatives and the Poor. A development study pre
pared for the International Cooperative Alliance and the Canadian International
Development Agency, 1977. The co-operative was initially referred to as Anand Mi
lk Federation Union Limited hence the name AMUL.
The Amul Story General Management Review Archived 4 December 2005 at the Way
back Machine.
indiadairy.com. indiadairy.com. Retrieved on 2015-11-29.
Dasgupta, Manas (9 September 2012). "'Kurien strode like a titan across the
bureaucratic barriers and obstacles'". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Retrieved 13 S
eptember 2012.
George, Shanti (1985). Operation flood: an appraisal of current Indian dairy
policy. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-561679-8.
Heredia, Ruth (1997). The Amul India story. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.
Suhrud, Tridip (8 April 2006). "The magic of manthan". Tehelka. Retrieved 2
February 2011.
Thapar, Romila (2001). "Seminar, Issues 497 508". Seminar.
"Economic and political weekly, Volume 6, Part 4". Economic and Political We
ekly. 6. 1971.
Verghese Kurien. I too had a dream. As told to Gouri Salvi, Lotus Collection
(An Imprint of Roli Books), 2005(2007).
The Cheese Industry in India. Chillibreeze.
SHRAWAN (2013-05-29). "Annex iv: list of award winners of rajiv gandhi natio
nal quality awards" (PDF). http://www.bis.org.in. New Delhi: Bureau of Indian St
andards. Retrieved 2014-05-15. External link in |website= (help)
Amul ready to take on Pepsi, Coke in sports drink segment Archived 27 Septem
ber 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
"AMUL upgrades processing through Tetra Pak's high-speed lines". The Times O
f India. 10 September 2013.
Amul UHT: On a Quest for Zero adulterated milk | Watch the video
Yahoo India
. In.news.yahoo.com. Retrieved on 2015-11-29.
Gujarat: Just like ATM, Amul launches 'Any Time Milk' machine in Anand:IBNLi
ve Videos. Ibnlive.in.com. Retrieved on 2015-11-29.
Varma, Mini. "The moppet who put Amul on India's breakfast table". Amul. Ret
rieved 2 February 2011.
Rao, Subha J. (15 December 2007). "Punch guru". The Hindu. Chennai, India. R
etrieved 2 February 2011.
"Brands peek out of the closet The Times of India". The Times Of India.
NDTV movies NDTV.
Shyam Benegal at ucla.net South Asia Studies, University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA).

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Amul.
amul.com, Official website
irma.ac.in, History of Amul