Date:18/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/18/stories/2008031859411300.htm

National

Amul: over to natural vanilla

Manas Dasgupta

ANAND (GUJARAT): Amul, a major manufacturer of ice-creams in the country, has switched to natural vanilla flavour in its entire range of vanilla ice-creams, to save the farmers in Kerala.

Claiming that the Amul was the first national brand to use natural vanilla extracts instead of synthetic vanilla, a spokesman of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets the Amul brand of products, said the switchover was to help the Kerala farmers cultivating ‘vanilla plainfolia,’ — an orchid, the fruits of which when extracted produced natural vanilla flavour.

The spokesman said the farmers had contacted the GCMMF in 2005 and later had also requested the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to take the initiative to make use of natural vanilla flavour mandatory for all the ice-cream manufacturers in the country.

The farmers had also sent a delegation to Anand to study the cooperative pattern of the Amul and later formed their own producers’ company for the value-addition and marketing of the natural vanilla extracts under the brand name “Vanilco.”