Amul cooperative movement celebrated its 75th anniversary by achieving group turnover of Rs. 61,000 crores, further consolidating its position as the largest food and FMCG brand in India. Needless to state, Amul, which is currently ranked as the 8th largest dairy organization in the world, added another Rs. 8000 crores to its group turnover in 2021-22, growing even faster than its 12 year compounded average growth rate, on the back of rapid post-pandemic recovery in out-of-home consumption and demand from restaurants, catering, travel and hospitality segment.
After the 48th Annual General Body Meeting of GCMMF (the organization that owns and markets products under brand Amul), held on 19th July 2022, Shri Shamalbhai Patel, Chairman, GCMMF, informed that the cooperative achieved 18.46% growth in turnover in 2021-22, which was even higher than 16% CAGR in turnover over the last 12 years.
The Chairman also emphasized the fact that “Over the last 12 years, our milk procurement has increased by a phenomenal 190%. This impressive growth was a result of the high milk procurement price – which has increased by 143% during this 12 year period – paid to our farmer-members”. “The highly remunerative price helped us retain farmers’ interest in milk production; and better returns from dairying have motivated them to enhance their investments in this sector”, the Chairman added.
He further said, “Our expansion plans are based on our milk procurement projections. Generally, every year there is capacity expansion through an investment of approximately Rs. 800 crore to Rs. 1,000 crore. We are also expanding in fresh products (milk, curd and buttermilk). A new dairy plant, with an investment of Rs. 500 crore, will come up in Rajkot. Within two years, large dairy plants will also come up in Baghpat, near Delhi, Varanasi, Rohtak and Kolkata”, a press release sent by Amul to Indian Cooperative reads.
The Vice-Chairman of GCMMF, Shri Valamji Humbal, stated that “Amul has been leveraging new-age technology to scale the supply chain across its key business verticals and replace manual interventions with digital apps. Undoubtedly, we have been at the forefront of the digitisation of milk plants and processes. Rural India has a lot of potential for use of emerging technologies compared to urban India.”.
The Vice-Chairman added “In the milk value chain, we have recently introduced several new technologies, which are giving good results. We recently built Asia’s biggest milk powder plant. We are also working on a technology which can store perishable Indian milk-based sweets and desserts for up to 45 days & beyond”.
In his speech R S Sodhi, Managing Director of GCMMF, informed, “Our dedicated team functioned as Covid warriors and kept the supply chain intact even in the most challenging of times. As we move beyond the pandemic, consumers are rewarding us by displaying higher preference for brand Amul. As out-of-home consumption returns to normalcy, restaurants are witnessing higher footfalls, travel and tourism has resumed and so have functions and gatherings.
The combined impact of all these factors is resulting in high growth across most product categories. Our milk-based beverages business grew by 36% in value terms, despite the peak summer season of 2021 being impacted by the second wave of Covid. Our ice-cream business also saw a sharp revival with a more than 50% value growth in 2022. Our flagship brand Amul Butter grew by 17%, while our Ghee business grew by more than 19%, both in value terms. We achieved 17% value growth in Amul long life milk, 44% value growth in Amul Cream, 24% value growth in Amul Dahi, 18% value growth in fresh Buttermilk and impressive 12% value growth in our largest product category, Amul fresh milk. New product innovation is deeply ingrained within our DNA. We launched several new and exciting products such as High Protein Lassi, High Protein Buttermilk, Speciality Cheeses, Amul Peanut Spread, a wide range of fresh ethnic Indian milk-based mithai and Amul Butter-based bread, cookies and bakery products in multiple markets.
Taking into consideration the suggestion of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Hon’ble Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation Shri Amit Shah, Amul has launched the latest initiative to encourage farmers to adopt organic farming and natural farming. Amul is also committed to provide market linkage and technical assistance to such farmers. In addition to this, organic vegetables and fruits will also be launched in the market soon. Special testing labs will be set up by Amul across India to enable all farmers involved in organic and natural farming to test their farm produce at reliable and affordable rates, the press release adds.