Amul plans to usher in a sweet revolution with branded honey

Obtaining forayed into various non-dairy branded food stuff segments of edible oils, ready-to-consume treats, bakery products and chocolates, dairy major Amul is now toying with the concept of bringing out its have branded honey.

As an extension of the current agri-worth-chain for its far more than 36 lakh milk producer associates in Gujarat, Amul seems to be to strengthen honey beekeeping to supply pure honey.

“Yes, we are major about this category,” stated RS Sodhi, Controlling Director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing and advertising Federation Ltd (GCMMF), which markets Amul brand of food stuff products.

Sodhi said that before the biggest constraint to get into branded honey section was screening infrastructure for the good quality and genuineness of honey. There was no dependable laboratory in India, and the samples experienced to be despatched to European labs for screening.

“That was high-priced and time-consuming. Now that the NDDB has opened a present day honey-screening facility in Anand, we can feel about accumulating honey from farmers and advertising it under our brand so that individuals can get pure and authentic honey at an inexpensive value,” Sodhi told BusinessLine.

1st screening lab

In July this year, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar experienced inaugurated India’s 1st government honey-screening lab established up by the Countrywide Dairy Development Board (NDDB) at Anand.

However, the enterprise plan and procurement and processing features are still to be finalised. “Already, a good deal of farmers in Northern Gujarat in Banaskantha place have absent into honey manufacturing. We have not still finalised the system, but it is there in our planning,” he stated. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his stop by to Banaskantha in December 2016 experienced lauded farmers of the district for having the direct in the “sweet revolution” with honey beekeeping and honey manufacturing alongside with animal husbandry. Banas dairy, a member union of GCMMF, experienced launched its have packaged honey called Banas Honey.

For Amul, obtaining into large-scale honey procurement on a “cooperative model” is a gain on each sides. A single side opens up a new buyer market place for the dairy huge, although on the other it improves sourcing for its have captive consumption of honey for different products, like butter cookies and the not long ago-launched prasad item — Panchamrit.

The push for honey-bee cultivation, originally established to start out from Gujarat – is witnessed as a big revenue making choice for farmers in other components of the place as properly as it needs reduced investment decision and supplies dependable allied economic action to farming and animal husbandary.

Amul, by way of its large community of 222 district cooperative milk unions has above 1.six crore milk producer associates, who pour their milk in above 1.85 lakh dairy cooperative societies throughout the place.