Why the Amul Moppet Is Scared of a Little Calf called Gowardhan
Why should the Amul moppet be scared of a little calf called Gowardhan? Because the little brand now has Amul's erstwhile CEO on its side
Dibeyendu Ganguly
Everybody seemed to desert BM Vyas once he put in his resignation as managing director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), owner of the Amul brand. Chairman Parthi Bhatol, with whom Vyas had been at loggerheads for years, accepted the resignation right away. Then the other Board members, all chairmen of Gujarat’s various district milk co-operatives, failed to weigh in on his side, as Vyas had hoped. Even Verghese Kurien, the 90 year old doyen of India’s dairy industry, who Vyas went to see, could do nothing to help his one time protégé.
In the end, the former MD would find his office sealed when he arrived to collect his things, leading him to kick the door in frustration, shattering a glass panel. An inglorious exit for a man who had spent 40 years with the organisation, 17 of which were as managing director. The Amul moppet was surely accumulating some bad karma. Nine months later, Vyas is back in a new avatar, as a director of Parag Milk Foods, owner of the Gowardhan and Go brands. At 750 crore, the company is less than one-fourth the size of Amul, but it’s a rising star. Is Vyas preparing the young David to fell the Amul Goliath? “Organizations are not felled by their competitors. They are destroyed by their internal problems”, he says ominously. Gowardhan is, in many ways, very similar to Amul, which is probably why Vyas is so comfortable there. Both organisations are firmly rooted in the villages and their biggest strength is their system for procuring milk from the rural hinterlands. While Amul is headquartered in Anand, near Vadodara, Gowardhan is located in the little town of Manchar, near Pune. Both offer up the full range of dairy products, from liquid milk, butter and ghee to curd and cheese. The notable difference is that Gowardhan milk comes from cows and
Dibeyendu Ganguly
Everybody seemed to desert BM Vyas once he put in his resignation as managing director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), owner of the Amul brand. Chairman Parthi Bhatol, with whom Vyas had been at loggerheads for years, accepted the resignation right away. Then the other Board members, all chairmen of Gujarat’s various district milk co-operatives, failed to weigh in on his side, as Vyas had hoped. Even Verghese Kurien, the 90 year old doyen of India’s dairy industry, who Vyas went to see, could do nothing to help his one time protégé.
In the end, the former MD would find his office sealed when he arrived to collect his things, leading him to kick the door in frustration, shattering a glass panel. An inglorious exit for a man who had spent 40 years with the organisation, 17 of which were as managing director. The Amul moppet was surely accumulating some bad karma. Nine months later, Vyas is back in a new avatar, as a director of Parag Milk Foods, owner of the Gowardhan and Go brands. At 750 crore, the company is less than one-fourth the size of Amul, but it’s a rising star. Is Vyas preparing the young David to fell the Amul Goliath? “Organizations are not felled by their competitors. They are destroyed by their internal problems”, he says ominously. Gowardhan is, in many ways, very similar to Amul, which is probably why Vyas is so comfortable there. Both organisations are firmly rooted in the villages and their biggest strength is their system for procuring milk from the rural hinterlands. While Amul is headquartered in Anand, near Vadodara, Gowardhan is located in the little town of Manchar, near Pune. Both offer up the full range of dairy products, from liquid milk, butter and ghee to curd and cheese. The notable difference is that Gowardhan milk comes from cows and