Amul is an Indian dairy cooperative, based at Anand in the state of Gujarat, India.

[2]
The word
amul (

) is derived from the Sanskrit word amulya (

), meaning invaluable.
[3]
The co-
operative is initially referred to as Anand Milk Federation Union Limited, That is why, the name
AMUL.
Formed in 1946, it is a brand managed by a cooperative body, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk
Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today is jointly owned by 3 million milk producers
in Gujarat.
[4]

Amul spurred India's White Revolution, which made the country the world's largest producer of
milk and milk products.
[5]
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 (19732006), is
credited with the success of Amul.
[6]

Contents
1 History
2 Company info
3 The three-tier "Amul Model"
o 3.1 District Cooperative Milk Producer's Union (Dugdh Sangh)
o 3.2 State Cooperative Milk Federation (Federation)
4 Impact of the "Amul Model"
o 4.1 The Amul brand
5 Products
6 UHT products and impact
7 Mascot
8 Advertising
9 In popular culture
10 References
11 External links
History
Amul the co-operative registered on 1 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 Anand and supply it to Bombay city.
[7][8]

Angered by the unfair trade practices, the farmers of Kaira approached Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
under the leadership of local farmer leader Tribhuvandas K. Patel. 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).
[9]
He sent Morarji Desai to organise the farmers. In 1946, the
milk farmers of the area went on a strike which led to the setting up of the cooperative to collect
and process milk.
[8]
Milk collection was decentralized, as most producers were marginal farmers
who could deliver, at most, 12 litres of milk per day. Cooperatives were formed for each
village, too.
[10]

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 on a commercial scale,
[11]
led to the first
modern dairy of the cooperative at Anand, which would compete against established players in
the market.
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 unions in other districts
Mehsana, Banaskantha, Baroda, Sabarkantha and Surat were set up.
[8]
To combine forces and
expand the market while saving on advertising and 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 June 2013, it was reported that the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited,
better known as Amul Dairy, had signed a tripartite agreement to start a dairy plant in Waterloo
village in upstate New York. The plant will initially manufacture paneer and ghee. Amul will use
an existing dairy plant owned by New Jersey-based NRI Piyush Patel for manufacturing. The
plant is strategically located, as it close to supply centres from where raw material is procured,
and is near New Jersey, which has a large Indian population.
[13]

Amul said that it will be able to produce and supply Amul products in the US as well as Canada
and export it to Europe, under the arrangement.
Adding to the success, Dr. Madan Mohan Kashyap (faculty Agricultural and Engineering
Department, Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana), Dr. Bondurant (visiting faculty) and Dr
Feryll (former student of Dr Verghese Kurien), visited the Amul factory in Gujarat as a research
team headed by Dr. Bheemsen. Shivdayal Pathak (ex-director of the Sardar Patel Renewable
Energy Research Institute) in the 1960s. A milk pasteurization system at the Research Centre of
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Ludhiana was then formed under the guidance of
Kashyap. it is good product .
Company info
The GCMMF is the largest food products marketing organisation of India. It is the apex
organisation of the dairy cooperatives of Gujarat. Over the last five and a half decades, dairy
cooperatives in Gujarat have created an economic network that links more than 3.1 million
village milk products with millions of consumers in India.
[citation needed]
The cooperatives collect
on an average 9.4 million litres
[citation needed]
of milk per day from their producer members, more
than 70% of whom are small, marginal farmers and landless labourers and include a sizeable
population of tribal folk and people belonging to the scheduled castes.
[citation needed]

The turnover of GCMMF (AMUL) during 201011 was 97.74 billion (US$1.5 billion). It
markets the products, produced by the district milk unions in 30 dairy plants. The farmers of
Gujarat own the largest state of the art dairy plant in Asia Mother Dairy, Gandhinagar,
Gujarat which can handle 3.0 million litres of milk and process 160 MTs of milk powder
daily..
[citation needed]

On 18 August 2012, Vipul Chaudhary of Mehsana district's milk cooperative was elected
chairman of GCMMF, following a court's intervention.
[14]

The three-tier "Amul Model"
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 state level. Milk collection is done at the village dairy
society, milk procurement and processing at the District Milk Union and milk and milk products
marketing at the state 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.
The main functions of the VDCS are:
Collection of surplus milk from the producers of the village and payment based on
quality and quantity,
Providing support services to the members like veterinary first aid, artificial insemination
services, cattle-feed sales, mineral mixture sales, fodder and fodder seed sales,
conducting training on animal husbandry and dairying,
Selling liquid milk for local consumers of the village,
Supplying milk to the District Milk Union.
District Cooperative Milk Producer's Union (Dugdh Sangh)
(RAW MATERIAL) The main functions of the union are:
Procurement of milk from the village milking societies of the district,
Arranging transportation of raw milk from the VDCS to the Milk Union,
Providing input services to the producers like veterinary care, artificial insemination
services, cattle-feed sales, mineral mixture sales, fodder and fodder seed sales,
Conducting training on cooperative development, animal husbandry and dairying for
milk producers and conducting skill development and leadership development training
for VDCS staff and Management Committee members,
Providing management support to the VDCS along with supervision of its activities.
Establish chilling centres and dairy plants for processing the milk received from the
villages.
Selling liquid milk and milk products within the district
Process milk into milk products as per the requirement of State Marketing Federation.
Decide on the prices of milk to be paid to milk producers as well on the prices of support
services provided to members.
State Cooperative Milk Federation (Federation)
The main functions of the federation are as follows:
Marketing of milk and milk products processed/manufactured by Milk Unions,
Establish a distribution network for marketing of milk and milk products,
Arranging transportation of milk and milk products from the Milk Unions to the market,
Creating and maintaining a brand for marketing of milk & milk products,
Providing support services to the Milk Unions and members like technical inputs,
management support and advisory services,
Pooling surplus milk from the Milk Unions and supplying it to deficit Milk Unions,
Establish feeder-balancing dairy plants for processing the surplus milk of the Milk
Unions,
Arranging for common purchase of raw materials used in manufacture/packaging of milk
products,
Decide on the prices of milk and milk products to be paid to Milk Unions,
Decide on the products to be manufactured at Milk Unions and capacity required for the
same.
Conduct long-term milk production, procurement and processing as well as marketing
planning.
Arranging finance for the Milk Unions and providing them technical know-how.
Designing and providing training in cooperative development and technical and
marketing functions.
Conflict resolution and keeping the entire structure intact.
Today, there are around 176 cooperative dairy unions formed by 1.25 lakh dairy cooperative
societies, having a total membership of around 13 million farmers on the same pattern, who are
processing and marketing milk and milk products profitably, be it Amul in Gujarat or Verka in
Punjab, Vijaya in Andhra Pradesh, Milma in Kerala, Gokul in Maharashtra, Saras in Rajasthan or
a Nandini in Karnataka. This process has created more than 190 dairy processing plants spread
all over India with large investments by these farmers institutions. These cooperatives today
collect approximately 23 million kg of milk per day and pay an aggregate amount of more than
Rs.125 billion to the milk producers in a year.
[citation needed]

Impact of the "Amul Model"
The effects of Operation Flood Programme are appraised by the World Bank in an evaluation
report. It has been proved that an investment of Rs. 20 billion over 20 years under Operation
Flood in the 1970s and 80s has contributed in increase of Indias milk production by 40 million
metric tonnes (MMT), i.e., from about 20 MMT pre-Operation Flood to more than 60 MMT at
the end of Operation Flood.
Thus, an incremental return of Rs. 400 billion annually have been generated by an investment of
Rs. 20 billion over 20 years. Indias milk production continues to increase and now stands at
90 MMT(as of 2012). Despite this fourfold increase in production, there has not been a drop in
the prices of milk during the period while production has continued to grow.
Due to this movement, the countrys milk production tripled between the years 1971 and 1996.
Similarly, the per capita milk consumption doubled from 111 gms per day in 1973 to 222 gm per
day in 2000.
The Amul brand
GCMMF (AMUL) has the largest distribution network for any FMCG company. It has nearly 50
sales offices spread all over the country, more than 5000 wholesale dealers and more than
700000 retailers.
Amul became the world's largest vegetarian cheese
[15]
and the largest pouched-milk brand.
AMUL is also the largest exporter of dairy products in the country. AMUL is available today in
over 40 countries of the world. AMUL is exporting a wide variety of products which include
whole and skimmed milk powder, cottage cheese (Paneer), UHT milk, clarified butter (Ghee)
and indigenous sweets.
The major markets are USA, West Indies, and countries in Africa, the Gulf Region, and SAARC
neighbours, Singapore, The Philippines, Thailand, Japan and China, and others such as
Mauritius, Australia, Hong Kong and a few South African countries. Its bid to enter the Japanese
market in 1994 did not succeed, but it plans to venture again.
[16]

In September 2007, Amul emerged as the leading Indian brand according to a survey by
Synovate to find out Asia's top 1000 Brands.
[17]

In 2013, Amul was named the Most Trusted brand in the Food and Beverages sector in The
Brand Trust Report, published by Trust Research Advisory.
[18]

Products
Amul's product range includes milk powders, milk, butter, ghee, cheese, Masti Dahi, Yoghurt,
Buttermilk, chocolate, ice cream, cream, shrikhand, paneer, gulab jamuns, flavoured milk,
basundi, Amul Pro brand and others. Amul PRO is a recently launched brown beverage just like
bournevita and horlicks offering whey protein, DHA and essential nutrients. In January 2006,
Amul launched India's first sports drink, Stamina, which competes with Coca Cola's Powerade
and PepsiCo's Gatorade.
[19]

Amul offers mithaimate which competes with Milkmaid by Nestle by offering more fat at lower
price.
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 and thus are icecreams in real sense of the word, while
many brands in India sell frozen desserts made from vegetable fat.
Amul's sugar-free Pro-Biotic Ice-cream won The International Dairy Federation Marketing
Award for 2007.
[citation needed]

UHT products and impact
Over the years Amul has been witnessing strong growth in this portfolio,with the segment
growing at 53%,
[20]
as a result of growing consumer awareness and demand for good quality
milk,the urban population has especially been showing great interest in long life UHT products
like Amul Taaza,which are packed in Tetra Pak cartons,which undergoes UHT treatment to
remove all harmful microorganisms while retaining the nutrition in the milk.Today Amul sells
around 4-5 lakh litres of UHT milk and other value added products per day and 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 by penetrating the deeper and vast markets by
maintaining long shelf life of milk,without the need of maintaing cold supply chains.
[21]

Mascot
Since 1967
[22]
Amul products' mascot has been the very recognisable "Amul baby" or Amul girl
(a chubby butter girl usually dressed in polka dotted dress) showing up on hoardings and product
wrappers with the tagline Utterly Butterly Delicious Amul. The mascot was first used for Amul
butter. In recent years in a second wave of ad campaign for Amul products, she has been used for
other products like ghee and milk.
Advertising


An Amul butter ad on Pakistan's Kargil War fiasco. The image shows the "Amul baby" between
George Fernandes and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In 1966, Amul hired Sylvester daCunha, then managing director of the advertising agency AS to
design an ad campaign for Amul Butter. daCunha designed a campaign as series of hoardings
with topical ads, relating to day-to-day issues.
[23]
It was popular and earned a Guinness world
record for the longest running ad campaign in the world. In the 1980s, cartoon artist Kumar
Morey and script writer Bharat Dabholkar had been involved with sketching the Amul ads; the
latter rejected the trend of using celebrities in advertisement campaigns.r credited chairman
Verghese Kurien with creating a free atmosphere that fostered the development of the ads.
[24]

Despite encountering political pressure on several occasions, daCunha's agency has 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 Airlines employees strike, and one
depicting the Amul butter girl wearing a Gandhi cap.
[23]

Amul hired DraftFCB+Ulka for the brands of Amul milk, chocolates, paneer, ghee, ice-cream.
In popular culture
The establishment of Amul is known as White Revolution.
The White Revolution inspired the notable Indian film-maker Shyam Benegal to base his film
Manthan (1976) on it. It starred Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, Naseeruddin 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 farmers went in truckloads to watch 'their' film, making it a
commercial success.
[25][26]
Manthan was chosen for the 1977 National Film Award for Best
Feature Film in Hindi.