Amul is an
Indian dairy cooperative, based at
Anand in the state of Gujarat, India. The word
Amul is derived from the
Sanskrit word
Amulya, meaning invaluable.The co-operative is also sometimes referred to by the
unofficial backronym: Anand Milk Union Limited.
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 3.03 million milk producers in Gujarat.
Amul spurred India's White Revolution, which made the country the world's largest producer of milk and milk products. In the process Amul became the largest food brand in India and has also ventured into markets overseas.
Dr Verghese Kurien, founder-chairman of the GCMMF for more than 30 years (1973-2006), is credited with the success of Amul.
History
The
Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd. was registered on December 1, 1946 as a response to the exploitation of marginal milk producers by traders or agents of the only existing dairy, the
Polson (brand) dairy, in the small town of
Anand (in
KairaDistrict of
Gujarat).
[7] Milk Producers had to travel long distances to deliver milk, which often went sour in summer, to Polson. The prices of
buffalo and cow milk were arbitrarily determined. Moreover, the government at that time had given monopoly rights to Polson to collect milk from Anand and supply it to Bombay city.
[8][9]
Angered by the unfair and manipulative 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).
[10] 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.
[9] Milk collection was also decentralized, as most producers were marginal farmers who could deliver atmost 1–2 litres of milk per day. Cooperatives were formed for each village too.
[11]
The Cooperative was further developed and managed by Dr.
Verghese Kurien along with
H.M. Dalaya. Dalaya's innovation of making skim milk powder from buffalo milk for the first time anywhere in the world and a little later, along with Kurien's help, making it on a commercial scale,
[12] led to the first modern dairy of the cooperative at Anand, which would successfully 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, and within a short span, five unions in other districts – Mehsana, Banaskantha, Baroda, Sabarkantha and Surat were set up.
[9] In order 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 of
Amul with it since 1955, transferred it to GCMMF.
[13]
GCMMF is India's largest food products marketing organisation.
[citation needed]. It is a state level apex body of milk cooperatives in Gujarat, which aims to provide remunerative returns to the farmers and also serve the interest of consumers by providing affordable quality products. GCMMF markets and manages the Amul brand. From mid-1990s Amul has entered areas not related directly to its core business. Its entry into
ice cream was regarded as successful due to the large market share it was able to capture within a short period of time – primarily due to the price differential and the brand name. It also entered the
pizza business, where the base and the recipes were made available to restaurant owners who could price it as low as 30 rupees per pizza when the other players were charging upwards of 100 rupees.
The GCMMF is the largest food products marketing organisation of India. It is the apex organization 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 producers with millions of consumers in India. These cooperatives collect on an average 9.4 million litres 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.
The turnover of GCMMF (AMUL) during 2010–11 was
97.74 billion (US$1.77 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 2.5 million litres of milk per day and process 100 MTs of milk powder daily.
[citation needed]
On 18 Aug 2012, Vipul Chaudhary of Mehsana district's milk cooperative was elected chairman of GCMMF, following a court's intervention.
[15]
[edit]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 further federated into a Milk Federation at the State level. The above 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. This helps in eliminating not only internal competition but also ensuring that economies of scale is achieved. As the above structure was first 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.
- Responsible for Marketing of Milk & Milk Products
- Responsible for Procurement & Processing of Milk
- Responsible for Collection of Milk
- Responsible for Milk Production
[edit]Village Dairy Cooperative Society (VDCS)
The main functions of the VDCS are as follows:
- Collection of surplus milk from the milk producers of the village & payment based on quality & quantity
- Providing support services to the members like Veterinary First Aid, Artificial Insemination services, cattle-feed sales, mineral mixture sales, fodder & fodder seed sales, conducting training on Animal Husbandry & Dairying, etc.
- Selling liquid milk for local consumers of the village
- Supplying milk to the District Milk Union
Thus, the VDCS in an independent entity managed locally by the milk producers and assisted by the District Milk Union.
[edit]District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Dugdh Sangh)
The main functions of the Union are as follows:
- Procurement of milk from the Village Dairy 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 & fodder seed sales, etc.
- Conducting training on Cooperative Development, Animal Husbandry & Dairying for milk producers and conducting specialised skill development & Leadership Development training for VDCS staff & Management Committee members.
- Providing management support to the VDCS along with regular supervision of its activities.
- Establish Chilling Centres & Dairy Plants for processing the milk received from the villages.
- Selling liquid milk & milk products within the District
- Process milk into various milk & 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.
[edit]State Cooperative Milk Federation (Federation)
The main functions of the Federation are as follows:
- Marketing of milk & milk products processed / manufactured by Milk Unions.
- Establish distribution network for marketing of milk & milk products.
- Arranging transportation of milk & milk products from the Milk Unions to the market.
- Creating & maintaining a brand for marketing of milk & milk products (brand building).
- Providing support services to the Milk Unions & members like Technical Inputs, management support & 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 & milk products to be paid to Milk Unions.
- Decide on the products to be manufactured at various Milk Unions (product-mix) and capacity required for the same.
- Conduct long-term Milk Production, Procurement & Processing as well as Marketing Planning.
- Arranging Finance for the Milk Unions and providing them technical know-how.
- Designing & Providing training on Cooperative Development, Technical & Marketing functions.
- Conflict Resolution & 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 entire 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 kgs. of milk per day and pay an aggregate amount of more than Rs.125 billion to the milk producers in a year.
[edit]Impact of the "Amul Model"
The effects of Operation Flood Programme are more appraised by the World Bank in its recent evaluation report. It has been proved that an investment of Rs. 20 billion over 20 years under Operation Flood Programme in 70s & 80s has contributed in increase of India’s milk production by 40 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) i.e. from about 20 MMT in pre- Operation Flood period to more than 60 MMT at the end of Operation flood Programme. Thus, 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 MMT. Despite this fourfold increase in milk production, there has not been drop in the prices of milk during the period and has continued to grow.
Due to this movement, the country’s milk production tripled between the years 1971 to 1996. Similarly, the per capita milk consumption doubled from 111 gms per day in 1973 to 222 gms per day in 2000. Thus, these cooperatives have not just been instrumental in economic development of the rural society of India but it also has provided vital ingredient for improving health & nutritional requirement of the Indian society. Very few industries of India have such parallels of development encompassing such a large population.
These dairy cooperatives have been responsible in uplifting the social & economic status of the women folk in particular as women are basically involved in dairying while the men are busy with their agriculture. This has also provided a definite source of income to the women leading to their economic emancipation.
The three-tier ‘Amul Model’ has been instrumental in bringing about the White Revolution in the country. As per the assessment report of the World Bank on the Impact of Dairy Development in India, the ‘Anand Pattern’ has demonstrated the following benefits:
- is has multi-dimensional impacts
- importance of getting government out of commercial enterprises
- importance of market failure in agriculture
- power & problems of participatory organisations
- importance of policy correct
[edit]Achievements of the "Amul Movement"
- The dairy cooperatives have been able to maintain democratic structure at least at the grass-root level with the management committee of the village level unit elected from among the members in majority of the villages.
- The dairy cooperatives have also been instrumental in bridging the social divide of caste, creed, race, religion & language at the villages, by offering open and voluntary membership.
[edit]Achievements of GCMMF
- 3.1 million milk producer member families
- 15,760 village societies
- 15 District Unions
- 9.4 million liters of milk procured per day
- 150 million (US$2.72 million) disbursed in cash daily
- GCMMF is the largest cooperative business of small producers with an annual turnover of 53 billion (US$959.3 million)
- The Govt. of India has honoured Amul with the “Best of all categories Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award”.
- Largest milk handling capacity in Asia
- Largest cold chain network
- 48 Sales offices, 5000 wholesale distributors, 7 lakh retail outlets
- Export to 37 countries worth 150 crore (US$27.15 million)
- Winner of APEDA award for eleven consecutive years[16]
[edit]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 5 000 wholesale dealers and more than 700 000 retailers.
Amul became the world's largest vegetarian cheese
[17] 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
SAARCneighbours, 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.
[18]
In September 2007, Amul emerged as the leading Indian brand according to a survey by Synovate to find out Asia's top 1000 Brands.
[19]
In 2011, Amul was named the Most Trusted brand in the Food and Beverages sector in
The Brand Trust Report,
[20] published by Trust Research Advisory.
rediff.com; "India's top 20 brands: Amul is No. 1"
[edit]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, Nutramul brand and others. In January 2006, Amul plans to launch India's first
sports drink Stamina, which will be competing with
Coca Cola's
Powerade and
PepsiCo's
Gatorade.
[21]
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; Kool Cafe, ready to drink coffee and India's first sports drink Stamina.
Amul's sugar-free Pro-Biotic Ice-cream won The International Dairy Federation Marketing Award for 2007.
[citation needed]
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 equally recognisable tagline
Utterly Butterly Delicious Amul.The mascot was first used for Amul butter. But in recent years in a second wave of ad campaign for Amul products, she has also been used for other product like
ghee and milk.
[edit]Advertising
In 1966, Amul hired
Sylvester daCunha, then managing director of the advertising agency
AS to design a new ad campaign for Amul Butter. daCunha designed an ad campaign as series of hoardings with topical ads, relating to day-to-day issues.
[23] The campaign was widely 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. Dabholkar credited chairman Varghese 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
Naxalite uprising in West Bengal, on the
Indian Airlines employees strike, and the 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.
[edit]References
- ^ http://www.amul.com/m/organisation
- ^ Alexander Fraser Laidlaw. Cooperatives and the Poor. A development study prepared for the International Cooperative Alliance and the Canadian International Development Agency, 1977.
- ^ Amul – The Taste of India.. "Welcome to Amul – The Taste of India". Amul.com. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
- ^ The Amul Story – General Management Review[dead link]
- ^ indiadairy.com
- ^ Dasgupta, Manas (Sep 9, 2012). "‘Kurien strode like a titan across the bureaucratic barriers and obstacles’". The Hindu. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
- ^ Ramachandran, Narayan (August 29, 2010). "Corporate or cooperate?". LiveMint. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ George, Shanti (1985). Operation flood: an appraisal of current Indian dairy policy. Delhi: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-561679-8.
- ^ a b c Heredia, Ruth (1997). The Amul India story. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. pp. 297. ISBN 978-0-07-463160-7.
- ^ Suhrud, Tridip (April 8, 2006). /story_main17.asp?filename=op040806the_magic.asp "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 Weekly 6. 1971.
- ^ The Cheese Industry in India. Chillibreeze.
- ^ TNN (February 9, 2003). "Kurien loses 'anand' over fracas in NDDB". Times of India. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ (PTI) (Aug 18, 2012). "Vipul Chaudhary elected GCMMF Chairman". The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved 13 September 2012.
- ^ Times of India. 3 June 2008.http://toi.amul.com/photogal/pg030608.html. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ Economic Times
- ^ Amul hopes to flow into Japanese market
- ^http://www.synovate.com/news/article/extra/20070824/Asia's%20Top%201000%20brands%20fact%20sheet.pdf
- ^ India Infoline News Service (January 29, 2011). "AMUL Most Trusted among India’s Food & Beverage Brands". India Infoline. Retrieved 1 March 2011.
- ^ Amul ready to take on Pepsi, Coke in sports drink segment
- ^ The Amul Mascot Story – Amul's website
- ^ a b Varma, Mini. "The moppet who put Amul on India's breakfast table". Amul. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ Rao, Subha J. (December 15, 2007). "Punch guru". The Hindu. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ NDTV movies NDTV.
- ^ Shyam Benegal at ucla.net South Asia Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
