AMUL- a SUCces story PART 1

Amul sprung from the seeds sown in the black soil of Charotar, an area in the Kaira
district of Gujarat, as a cooperative movement to empower the milk producers. The
beginning of the journey this brand embarked upon is itself quite unique and needs
greater scrutiny. The milk producers’ cooperative formed in Gujarat was in response to
the monopoly that existed since the time of colonial India. At that time Polson Dairy was
the biggest buyer of the milk being produced in Kaira. Polson was built on the basis of
providing superior quality products to up-market consumers. “Polson” was in fact a
brand as synonymous with butter as “Xerox” is with photocopy. However Polson’s
products were not the reason that led to the rise of Amul, it was its exploitative practices
that started the cooperative revolution. Polson indeed played the role of Goliath to
Amul’s David. The challenge that lay before the milk cooperative was not only to
upstage Polson’s monopoly on the supply side, but also to capture the booming milk
products market with a their own brand. So the very basis of competition became high
quality value-for-money products. It was under such circumstances that the foundations
of Amul were laid.
For several years the Kaira cooperative supplied milk and allied products without a
formal distribution network leave alone a brand name. However under the leadership of
Verghese Kurien the brand name Amul was formally adopted. When the need of a
brand name for the Kaira Cooperative was felt initially, the word was circulated in Anand
(the birth place of Amul) among friends and cooperative members. The name Amul was
most probably suggested by a quality control expert in Anand. It was derived from
”amulya”, which in Sanskrit, Gujarati and many other Indian languages, means
priceless, and implies matchless excellence. As an Indian name, it associated itself with
pride in swadeshi goods, a striking contrast to the English sound of Polson. The name
was short, memorable and easily pronounced. It could also serve as an acronym for the
organization – the unusable KDCMPUL (Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producer’s
Union Limited) taken from Kaira Cooperative’s full name, could be substituted by AMUL,
standing for Anand Milk Union Limited. Although not the Cooperative’s true name it
unmistakably conveyed the desired meaning. Even though Amul products have been in
use in millions of homes since 1946, the brand Amul was registered only in 1957. The
difficulty in registration stemmed from the fact that the cooperative had to prove enough
sales and advertisements before this common word could be established as a brand
name of a dairy product.