Hello guys, Welcome to my blog FOODZAQ. Today I am going to share about STORY OF AMUL IN INDIA. Amul, is an Indian dairy cooperative society, based at Anand in the Indian state of Gujarat. Formed in 1946, it is a cooperative brand managed by a cooperative body, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today is jointly owned by 36 lakh (3.6 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.
Amul was spearheaded by Tribhuvandas Patel under the guidance of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. As a result, Kaira District Milk Union Limited was born in 1946 (later renamed to Amul). Tribhuvandas became the founding chairman of the organization and led it until his retirement in 70s. He hired Dr VergheseKurien in 1949. He convinced Dr. Kurien to stay and help with the mission. Under the chairmanship of Tribhuvandas, Dr. Kurien was initially the general manager and helped guide the technical and marketing efforts of Amul. Dr. Kurien was the chairman of Amul briefly after Tribhuvandas Patel died in 1994.
SUCCESS STORY OF AMUL IN INDIA
The Beginning
- Amul was formed as a part of a cooperative movement against Polson Dairy in Anand, Gujarat, which procured milk from local farmers of Kaira District at very low rates and sold it to the then Bombay government. Everyone except the farmers benefited from this trade.
- The farmers took their plea to Sardar Patel, who had advocated farmers' cooperatives since 1942.
- The rapid growth led to problems including excess production that the Bombay Milk Scheme couldn't accommodate. To solve this issue, a plant was set up to process all that extra milk into products such as milk powder and butter.
AMUL Is Born
- The late Dr Verghese Kurien, rightly called the Milkman of India, was Amul's true architect.
- His journey at Amul began in 1949 when he arrived in Anand to manage a dairy as a government employee. He went from helping farmers repair machinery to revolutionising India's dairy industry with the White Revolution (or Operation Flood), the largest dairy development programme in the world.
- The new dairy with the milk processing plant was ready for operation in October 1955, the year that also saw a breakthrough in dairy technology - buffalo milk was processed to make products for the first time in the world.
Awards, Accolades, and a global presence
- Over the years, Amul, together with GCMMF, has won numerous awards. Some of these include the Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award, 1999; the Golden Trophy for Outstanding Export Performance, 2009-10; Best Marketing Campaign, 2014; and World Dairy Innovation Award, among many others.
- Amul earned recognition all over the world when GCMMF introduced it on the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) platform, where only the six top dairy players across the world sell their products.
- According to Amul, the Taste of India slogan is more than just corporate positioning or advertising jargon. This slogan lends meaning to the brand's never-ending commitment to taking quality food and products to the rural man, which he otherwise couldn't have afforded.
UHT products and impact on Market
Over the years, Amul has been witnessing growth in this portfolio, with the segment growing at 53%. Long life UHT products for urban populations, like Amul Taaza, which are packed in Tetra park cartons undergo UHT treatment to remove all harmful micro-organisms while retaining the nutrition in the milk. Amul sells around 4,00,000-5,00,000 litres of UHT milk and other value added products per day and forecasts 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 the need of maintaining cold supply chains.
Advertising
In 1966, Amul hired Sylvester da Cunha, the 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.
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. Dabholkar credited chairman Verghese Kurien with creating a free atmosphere that fostered the development of the ads.
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 girl wearing a Gandhi cap.
In 2013, Amul tweeted a picture featuring the Amul butter girl, implying that 'freedom of choice' died in 2013, in opposition to the Supreme court of India, overruling the judgment of the Delhi high court and criminalizing homosexuality again.
On 17 October 2016, Amul butter girl celebrated 50 years when she first appeared in the topical ad titled "Thoroughbread". The ad showed a jockey holding a slice of bread during the horse race season in 1966. The impish Amul girl had appeared for the first time even before that, with Eustace Fernandez showed her offering bedtime prayers with a wink and a lick of lips, saying "Give us this day our daily bread: with Amul butter".
Their Ad on Aagey Badhta Hai India had an excellent response from the audience. It basically spoke about how their Milk is seen as a household product with catchy tune associated to it. It has over 39 lakh (~4 million) views on YouTube.
The Butter Girl
The butter girl Amul did not always have the round-eyed moppet as its mascot. The Butter Girl was born in 1966 when Sylvester daCunha, the then MD of the advertising agency handling Amul butter's account, created her for its campaign. It was a pleasant change from the dull, corporate ads that the previous agency had come up with. Being a seasoned marketer himself, Dr Kurien gave dacunha complete creative freedom to create and release the ads without taking the company's permission. 30 years later, the Utterly Butter Girl still wins hearts wherever she is, whether on a billboard or on the packet of butter.
Amul is not just a brand; it is also a movement that represents farmers' economic freedom. The name is now a household term that is here to stay, and the chubby-cheeked Amul girl will continue to cast a spell on the public.
I hope you should understand the story of Amul in India. Thank you so much for visiting my blog regularly. I will be back with another blog soon. If you have any suggestion or query please feel free to comment below. Thank you once again. Have a great day.
0 Comments