Written by Avi Sriram and Atharv Sriram – grade 10 and grade 5 students respectively.

Every time I take a trip to the grocery store, I find that there is always that one person who picks up an argument with the shopkeeper about how there is no “Amul Doodh” or “Amul Butter”. Happens to you too?

And when I hear the brand Amul, the first thing that comes to mind is the song “Amul Doodh Peeta Hai India” which I find, honestly, very catchy. But how many of us know the story behind  the milk we drink or the butter we use everyday?

Here is a brief insight into the Utterly Butterly Delicious story of AMUL, which has earned a Guiness World Record for the longest running ad campaign in the world.

Here’s the interesting story

Amul was formed as a part of a cooperative movement against Polson Dairy in Anand, a small place in Gujarat, which procured milk from local farmers of Kaira District at very low prices and sold it to the then Bombay government. Everyone, except the farmers benefited from this trade. The farmers took their plea to Sardar Patel.

This led to the formation of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union Limited in Anand. The union began pasteurising milk produced by few farmers for the Bombay Milk Scheme. Soon it grew big to 432 farmers (this was in 1948). But, there was a problem in this fast growth and excess excess production – the Bombay Milk Scheme couldn’t store all this extra produce. The they got an idea.

The cooperative set up a plant to process all that extra milk into products such as milk powder and butter. And this was how Anand Milk Union Limited, fondly called AMUL was founded by the late Dr. Verghese Kurien, who was called – The milkman of India.

Dr. Verghese Kurien’s contributions to AMUL

Dr. Kurien’s 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 revolutionizing India’s dairy industry with the White Revolution also called as Operation Flood, the largest dairy development programme in the world. This also made India the world’s largest milk producer in the world.

One of the main inventions at Amul was the production of milk powder from buffalo-milk, instead of from the conventional cow-milk

The word AMUL means priceless, which was the initial idea used to market the wide range of products that AMUL had from  the milk to the butter and now even the varied variety of mouth watering chocolates.

 But that’s not all.

Did you know that the girl on the packets of butter is called the ‘ Utterly Butterly Girl’?

Creative indeed isn’t it?

During this time of lockdown, AMUL too has taken special precautions so as to ensure safety to its workers as well as pure milk to the people of India. AMUL has installed makeshift washbasins on the premises with sanitisers at every counter. To ensure social distancing, it is made sure that only a handful of people travel a minibus completely equipped with gloves and masks.

Over the years AMUL has grown vastly, truly becoming ‘The Taste of India’, just as the tagline suggests. Generations of Indians, including I, have grown up listening to its jingles and the Utterly Butterly Girl has now become one of the most famous mascots in India today.

Test your knowledge by solving this crossword.

Down:

1 Amul spearheaded the ________________ revolution in India

2. The word which means priceless

3. The Milkman of India

4. Amul was formed as a part of a cooperative movement against ____________ Dairy

5. The district where milk was procures at low rates.

Across:

4. Which freedom fighter laid the foundation for this organization

6. Amul has installed makeshift ____________ for precaution during lockdown

7. The place in Gujarat where Amul started

Let us know if you completed it!

Written by Avi Sriram and Atharv Sriram – who are in grade 10 and grade 5 at the National Public School, Koramangala, Bangalore

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