Anand Milk Union Limited, a brand so distinctively Indian has been a part of our lives for nearly five decades now and still is able to touch a chord in our hearts. Brand Amul has grown as a dynamic factor which protects the interests of producers and consumers of Indians and it is a symbol of many aspects of high-quality products sold at reasonable price, of the genesis of a vast co-operative network, of the marketing savvy of a farmers’ organization, and of a proven model for dairy development.
In 1946 the colonial government of Mumbai had the rights of the procurement of milk from the villages of Kaira district. The milk was to be supplied to the government for distribution in Mumbai. The firm, Polson dairy in turn appointed contractors for collecting milk from these villages. The farmers found the contractors entirely unreliable in collecting the daily milk supply and paying them what they considered to be unfair and insufficiently remunerative price. This state of affairs was not tolerated by the farmers; they retaliated and refused to supply milk. Hence they formed a co-operative under the guidance of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Morarji Desai and eventually won the right to collect milk in the district and also sell it to the Government.
The co-operative was started with an initial collection of just 250 liters a day. This was the beginning of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union, which is now better known as AMUL which was formally registered on December 14, 1946.
Amul inspired ‘Operation Flood’ and credited to bring the ‘White Revolution’ in India. It began with two village cooperatives and 250 liters of milk per day and it distributes over a million liters of milk per day, collects and processes various milk products. By managing milk supplies from the cattle farmer and sending it straight to the factory, it’s been able to eliminate the middleman. Amul has become a symbol of the aspirations of millions of farmers.
With ‘White Revolution’, we cannot ignore the remarkable contribution of Dr. Verghese Kurien who is better known as the “father of the white revolution” in India and his name is synonymous with the Amul brand. He is also called as the Milkman of India. For his outstanding input he has earned many accolades and awards that include: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, Padam Shri, Padam Bhushan, Krishi Ratna Award, Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie Foundation and many more.
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 further federated into a Milk Federation at the State level. Three-tier structure was set up in order to delegate the various functions; milk collection is done at the Village Dairy Society, Milk Procurement & Processing at the District Milk Union and Milk & Milk Products Marketing at the State Milk Federation. Three-tier structure was first developed 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 effects of Operation Flood Programme are more appraised by the World Bank. An incremental return of Rs. 400 billion annually have been generated by an investment of Rs. 20 billion over a period of 20 years. This has been the most beneficial project funded by the World Bank anywhere in the World. One can continue to see the effect of these efforts as India’s milk production continues to increase and now stands at 90 Million Metric Tonne.
AMUL is recognised as the country’s largest milk producing cooperative. Based in the village of Anand, it expands exponentially. Originally marketed by the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, Anand, it was taken over by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) in 1973 and further it joined hands with other milk cooperatives and now covers 2.12 million farmers, 10,411 village level milk collection centers and fourteen district level plants (unions) under the overall supervision of GCMMF (Gujarat cooperative milk marketing federation ltd).
Amul has a wide spread supply chain network across the country. Its products are available in over 500,000 retail outlets across Indian through its network of over 3,500 distributors. There are 47 storehouses with dry and cold warehouses to buffer inventory of the entire range of products.
Amul network follows an umbrella branding strategy i.e a common brand for most product categories produced like liquid milk, milk powders, butter, ghee, cheese, cocoa products, sweets, ice-cream and condensed milk. AMUL is considered as India’s best known local Brand across all categories.
In fact, it is not just the core values at Amul that have remained the same; since long the core team associated with the brand is still the same. Even the advertising agency hasn’t changed, and Da Cunha and FCB Ulka, have played a pivotal role in the growth of Amul.
Amul’s unique marketing strategy is really surprising. Despite of the fact that in today’s business world advertising plays a vital role to marketing a product, Amul does not spend more than 1% of total turnover for marketing, compared with 7-8 % spent by most of food and consumer product companies.
With top of mind use of its jingle, Utterly Butterly Delicious and animated Amul girl, campaign- Amul brand has set a longest running advertising Campaign and it is a world record that got registered its name in Guinness World Record and has won the many accolades. Amul features in top 100 Brands of Asia.Competing with other international brands like Nastle, Dutch Lady, Dumex etc it has been ranked as the best and number one dairy brand from India.
From a sales turnover of Rs 1,114 crore in 1994-95, Amul’s sales have risen substantially to Rs 9,774.2 crore in 2010-11. Amul is all set to fight in the global arena and has entered overseas markets such as Mauritius, UAE, United States of America, Bangladesh, Australia, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and a few South African countries.
The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. cannot be viewed simply as a business enterprise. It is an institution created by the milk producers themselves to primarily safeguard their interest economically, socially as well as democratically. Business houses create profit in order to distribute it to the shareholders. In the case of GCMMF the surplus is ploughed back to farmers through the District Unions as well as the village societies. This circulation of capital with value addition within the structure not only benefits the final beneficiary – the farmer – but eventually contributes to the development of the village community. This is the most significant contribution the Amul Model cooperative has made in building the Nation.
Eduindex 
You must be logged in to post a comment.