Utterly Butterly Digital

Amul, a brand almost as old as the nation itself, is gearing up for a phase of growth that includes many of today’s tools of disruption, including apps and ecommerce. The biggest assets, though, continue to be its dairy farmers

- Naini Thaker

Fifty years ago, the four-year-old National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Gujarat’s Anand flagged off what went on to become the world’s largest dairy development programme. ‘Operation Flood’ or ‘White Revolution’ had one objective: To take the Amul model out of Gujarat and replicate it across India. Amul, of course, was the brand the milk farmers of Anand’s Kaira district had launched to process surplus buffalo milk—a first in the world— into powder, butter, and cheese. This was possible thanks to a dairy that was inaugurated in 1955 by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

From an era in which women could be seen lining up outside a shed in Kaira to deposit milk to the age of eCommerce, the Amul brand has sustained, thrived and evolved. Delivery boys sporting Amul T-shirts are a common sight on the streets of Ahmedabad, going door-to-door to deliver its products to customers who order online. What started as Verghese Kurien’s accidental tryst in the milk business—he had left a government job to start Kaira’s milk cooperative movement along with freedom fighter and farmer leader Tribhuvandas Patel—today sells over 80 products with dairy at the core.

A lot, though, has changed in the past 73 years. “No educated girl in the 21st century wants to marry a dairy farmer who has 20-30 animals,” grins RS Sodhi, managing director of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), which manages the Amul brand and is collectively owned by some 3.6 million milk producers in Gujarat.