How Amul baby food took shape in Mysuru in 1956

Shilpa P. | NT

It was time to recall the story of the Amul-Infant baby food formulation, a household brand close to all mothers in the country, developed from buffalo milk by CSIR-CFTRI based in Mysuru, way back in 1956, at the 38th webinar of web series of CSIR-CFTRI on Monday.

In the web series they discussed success stories of 80 breakthroughs developed by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research)-CFTRI (Central Food Research Institute) to mark its 80th year of existence.

CSIR-CFTRI Director Sridevi Annapurna Singh said that India became a global leader in cow milk production and selfsufficient only in 1970. But in 1950s when there was a paucity of cow’s milk, and all infant food required was imported, and when buffalo’s milk was considered unsuitable for easy digestion by a baby, the technology developed by CSIR-CFTRI helped its usage in infant food.

NRDC (National Research Development Corporation) transferred this technology in 1959 to the Kaira district milk producers union, which later produced infant food under the brand name “Amulspray”. And later 50 per cent of the baby foods imported were substituted by indigenous Amul baby food by the 1960s, she said.

Dr V Prakash former director of CSIR-CFTRI, Mysuru, said, at a time when 56 per cent of India’s cattle population was buffalo, CFTRI (which was formed in 1950) took up the initiative to develop infant food from buffalo’s milk in December 1956, when its budget was less than Rs 20 lakh and they had minimum infrastructure, he said.

And he recalled all 72 people who worked in this project along with 90 employees of CFTRI, including former director Dr V Subramanian, chief engineer of pilot plant Dr S K Lakshminarayana, Dr M R Chandrashekara, N Subramaniam, engineer who manufactured equipment in CFTRI, Dr P K Ramanathan, technician in pilot plant, Dr Nair, Microbiologist Dr T N Ramachandra Rao and others.

“Later Dr Verghese Kurian took 1,811 kg infant food formulation developed by scientists of CSIR-CFTRI, and tried it on 120 children at Vellore CMC and it was a total success,” he said. He even unveiled the story of reducing fat of buffalo milk for developing this infant food, which resulted in all the co-products and by-products including butter, cheese and others.

And he even recalled the journey of CFTRI in developing technologies for nine types of food for children including infant food to weaning food, bal aahar, energy food to support mid-day meal scheme which is touching 14.8 crore children per day in India.

Dr B M Vyas, former Managing Director of Amul dairy, said that Amul which manufactured 17 million metric tons of milk powder in 1971 now produces 209 million metric tons in 70 powder plants all over india.