 "Amul records over Rs 23,000 cr turnover in FY16")
The figure assumes significance when we pitch this against the turnovers of the food giants in the country. Britannia posted a turnover of Rs 7,175.99 crore for 2014-15, while Nestle clocked a turnover of Rs 8,175.31 crore. ITC and HUL's food businesses posted turnovers of Rs 6,411 crore and Rs 5,522 crore respectively last fiscal.
What is noteworthy, the dairy cooperative has managed to grow its turnover 187% or about 3.75 times in the past six years. As R S Sodhi, the managing director of GCMMF under whose stewardship the Anand-headquartered cooperative has scaled new heights, pointed out , "We have grown from a turnover of Rs 8,000 crore to 23,000 crore just about six years. The target of taking this to Rs 30,000 crore by 2017-18, which means 25% growth in two years, seems achievable."
The entire sales turnover growth has come because of volume. Sodhi said that while we have registered a value-growth of 11%, our volume growth is around 13-14% which has come from additional volumes in existing markets as well as volumes from new markets. He added that volume growth for value added products has been around 15%, while for liquid milk it is around 13-14%.
The provisional unduplicated group turnover of member unions of Amul group has crossed Rs 33,000 crores which is also higher by 14% compared to last financial year.
This entire value growth has come despite paying high procurement prices to milk farmers. Sodhi highlighted that while worldwide farmers are getting 30-50% less price for their milk, Gujarat farmers are getting at least 8-10% more price. GCMMF passes on 80-85% of consumer rupee back to milk producer members thus by encouraging them to produce more milk.
The 17 member Unions of GCMMF with farmer member strength of more than 36 lakhs across 18,600 villages of Gujarat are procuring on an average 18 million liters of milk per day (mlpd). Because of better milk procurement prices paid by member unions of GCMMF, milk procurement by member unions has increased by 91% during last six years.
Jethabhai Patel, chairman, GCMMF, emphasised the fact that mantra of rapid expansion has clearly yielded rich dividends for GCMMF. "Based on estimated growth in market demand for Amul products and our future marketing efforts, we anticipate at least 20% CAGR growth in the business of GCMMF during the next five years."
He added that Amul plans to enhance its milk processing capacity from the current level of 28.1 mlpd to 38 mlpd in the next five years. Patel also claimed in New Zealand farmers were getting around Rs 51.5 per liter of milk during 2013-14 which was reduced to Rs 21.7 per liter during 2015-16. On the other hand, farmers of Gujarat are getting 8-10% higher price of milk every year.
In order to meet milk and milk product demand in major metros of India, the member unions of GCMMF have started creating their own milk processing plants in states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan. The Member Unions of GCMMF have also started milk procurement from other states.