Founder @Scandalous Foods | 2X Founder in HORECA - Served 2.5 Crores+ Meals | IIM Calcutta Dropout | TiE Food Network Leader
What if I told you a local brand in Karnataka sells more milk than Amul (GCMMF) does in 6 entire states combined, and Amul can’t do a thing about it? (Sounds crazy, right?) But that’s exactly what’s happening. Every morning, over 1 crore litres of milk move through one single network: NANDINI. (Just one state & one brand!) And it’s beating India’s biggest dairy giant at its own game. Because Amul didn’t lose Karnataka… Nandini earned it. Decades ago, when nobody even said the word “brand,” a small co-op started with one promise: to make sure farmers got paid, even when markets didn’t. Today, that same co-op… Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Limited(KMF) touches over 26 lakh farmers, 15,000+ villages, and processes milk worth ₹23,000 crore a year. And every Bangalorean will tell you, there’s a Nandini parlour on every single street. It’s in your chai, your curd, your hostel fridge… you don’t even notice it anymore, that’s how deep it runs. So when Amul tried to expand into Karnataka last year, the reaction wasn’t mild. People didn’t just prefer Nandini, but they defended it. Protests broke out. Politicians jumped in. Because for Karnataka, Nandini isn’t just milk. It’s their identity & pride! And for 3 straight years, Nandini supplied 12,000 litres/day of ice cream to Amul itself. Made a clean ₹3.7 crore profit. (The underdog selling to the giant) When I read that, I smiled because it’s proof that sometimes, scale means nothing. Money can buy machines, but it can’t buy belonging. See, Amul is the symbol of India’s dairy revolution. But Nandini, it’s the soul of Karnataka. And maybe in a world obsessed with going national, sometimes the strongest brands are the ones that stay local. Because they don’t just serve people, they belong to them. Amul may rule India. But in Karnataka, every cup of chai whispers one truth: “This land belongs to Nandini.”
Sanket S, I moved to Bangalore recently and I had similar question as why Amul isnt able to capture Karnataka and figured out that farmers get subsidies if they supply to KMF(Currently 5 rs per liter). Because of govt backed incentives, Nandini operates with advantages that Amul doesn’t have in Karnataka. So your comparison between Amul and Nandini is invalid. They are not competing on completely level playing field. https://www.kmfnandini.coop/en/portfolio/ksheeradhare
Beautifully written, such a powerful reminder that real brand loyalty isn’t built through ads, it’s built through identity and emotion. 💙 Nandini truly shows what it means to belong to the people you serve.
Sanket S This story perfectly captures what true brand loyalty looks like—built on trust, community, and purpose, not just scale or money. Nandini didn’t compete with Amul; it connected with people. That’s the real power of belonging over branding. #infinityiiac Infinity IIAC https://linktr.ee/InfinityIIAC
Local brands win when they build trust, loyalty, and deep community connection. Sanket S
Sanket S Nandini was started on the same principles as Amul. In fact it was started in Karnataka as part of the White Revolution. A bit of research will help understand the story. You have Avin in Tamil Nadu, Milma in Kerala, Mother Diary in Delhi, Vijaya in Andhra Pradesh. Amul is the largest in the country and Nandini is the second largest. No private brands have been able to penetrate and beat Nandini in Karnataka, this holds true for Amul also. Nandini Ghee is used to make Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam Ladoo prasadam. Nandini has deeply penetrated the market for two reasons: co-operative business model, consistent marketing efforts and aggressive expansion, diversification into other products like Bread, Sweets, Idli Dosa batter. The problem for Amul is: they never invested in Karnataka for them to make a dent. Nandini infact manufactures some of the ice cream products of Amul under licence to my knowledge. The protests were more political in nature.
Nandini is just doing what NDDB expected everyone of the states to do. Amul is not competing but complimenting what states do. Decades ago I visited DrKurien in his office in Anand, Gujarat. He said , pointing to some milk trucks , that they were on their way to Kolkata. So NDDB IS NOT COMPTINGNWITH ANYONE.
It's a celebratory post for someone reading this in Mysore, Karnataka. The numbers ought to be validated but the ground report justifies this 100%. 👌
If Nandini is confident of its quality why it feared Amul. In fact arrival of Amul would have further strengthened brand loyalty. 🤔
This reflects strength of India’s cooperative model. As per verified 2025 data: - Amul (GCMMF) procures around 35 million litres of milk per day across India from 36 lakh farmers and 18,600 cooperatives — nearly 3.5x larger than Nandini by volume. - Nandini (KMF) collects about 10 million litres daily from 26 lakh farmers, making it India’s largest state-level cooperative. India’s top milk brands by scale (2025): 1️⃣ Amul – 35 million L/day 2️⃣ Nandini – 10 million L/day 3️⃣ Mother Dairy – 12 lacs L/day 4️⃣ Hatsun Agro – 20 lacs L/day 5️⃣ Aavin – 23 lacs L/day So while Nandini dominates Karnataka, Amul continues to lead India — and together, they exemplify how India’s cooperative system empowers millions of farmers nationwide.
Professor & Chair, Marketing at School of Inspired Leadership | Board Member, SOS Children’s Villages of India | Social Innovation | LSIP Facilitator | Training | Consulting | Entrepreneurship
1wWe should not miss the woods for the trees. The cooperative movement in India was initiated with a national vision of providing sufficient milk to the last kid standing and help farmers get the ‘right’ price for their produce - milk! Each state cooperative were working towards this end, and the hard reality is that each cooperative was working with different levels of efficiency. There is no doubt GCMMF was the best managed. But that never meant that others cant improve. If Nandini is doing a good job in Karnataka, i think the larger objective of the cooperative movement is gradually getting met. I do not think there should be a competition between the cooperatives, rather collaboration should be fostered (like Nandini supplying icecream to AMUL). Politicians and other vested stakeholders will try their level best to drive a wedge amongst the cooperatives. God forbid this ‘politics’ should not again put our farmers and our children in despair, and some private MNC exploits the situation!