Amul re-elects Jethabhai Patel as its chairman

Mumbai: Dairy major Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which sells milk products under the Amul brand, today re-elected Jethabhai Patel as its chairman.

"Jethabhai P Patel has been unanimously elected as the chairman of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) today," the organisation said in a statement.

The GCMMF is the largest milk and milk products marketing organisation in the country with annual sales turnover of Rs 21,000 crore. It markets a wide range of milk and milk products under the brand name Amul and Sagar.

Following a row surrounding the unceremonious ousting of the former chairman Vipul Chaudhary in January last year, Patel was first elected as Chairman in August 2014 by all the 17 members of the Federation.

Patel said GCMMF has set a target to achieve milk handling and marketing capability for 300 lakh litres a day by 2020 and turnover to Rs 50,000 crore.

He further said the global dairy industry has been witnessing the surge in production coupled with decline in demand of large countries like China resulting into a sluggish market conditions.

Stating that milk producers in countries like New Zealand are getting 60 percent less price for milk compared to the previous year, Patel said farmers of Gujarat are getting about 5-8 percent more price than last year.

"This has been made possible due to GCMMF's emphasis on marketing of branded, value-added dairy products without relying on commodity markets," he said.

He assured the milk producers that GCMMF will continue to strengthen its marketing of value-added products to ensure better returns in the coming years.

He assured the consumers that GCMMF will not compromise on quality of its products and would never substitute other ingredients with cheaper low cost alternatives.