India’s dairy powerhouse Amul has earned a landmark global honour. The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which owns and manages the Amul brand, has been ranked the world’s number one cooperative in GDP per capita performance as per the World Cooperative Monitor 2025, released by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) in partnership with EURICSE.

The announcement was made at the ICA CM50 Conference in Doha, Qatar, where the global cooperative movement gathered to assess its role in delivering economic resilience and inclusive growth. The recognition places India’s cooperative model firmly at the forefront of global attention, underscoring Amul’s ability to combine scale, competitiveness, and community-driven value creation in a market crowded with multinational giants.

Jayen Mehta, Managing Director of GCMMF, called the achievement a proud milestone for every member of the Amul family — a network that begins with 36 lakh dairy farmers across rural India. He stressed that Amul is not just a corporate brand but a cooperative where farmers govern the value chain end-to-end, from milk collection and processing to marketing and expansion across global markets.

According to him, the world’s most valuable resource in dairy is not milk but trust — the trust of millions of producer-members and billions of consumers. He added that Amul’s growth story advances several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty alleviation, gender equality, and strengthened rural economies, ensuring that prosperity is shared rather than concentrated.

The global recognition also arrives at a pivotal moment for cooperative enterprises worldwide. At the Second UN Social Summit 2025 in Doha, global leaders adopted a political declaration acknowledging cooperatives as a central force for poverty eradication, decent employment generation, social inclusion, and economic transformation.

The International Year of Cooperatives 2025 was officially declared closed, accompanied by a collective resolve to mark the year every decade as a continued commitment to strengthening sustainable cooperative models. This policy endorsement gives fresh impetus to people-led enterprises at a time when the world is demanding economic systems that reward fairness, transparency, and community ownership.

For India, Amul’s ascent to the top of the global cooperative rankings is more than an accolade; it is a reaffirmation of the enduring power of Operation Flood and the vision of Dr. Verghese Kurien, which transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into the world’s largest dairy producer.

With a brand value exceeding $10 billion and a formidable presence across dairy, nutrition, and value-added food innovation, Amul continues to demonstrate that farmer-owned organizations can achieve both global competitiveness and grassroots empowerment. As debates intensify worldwide on how to build growth models that are resilient, equitable, and accountable, India’s cooperative revolution — led by Amul — has emerged as a compelling template for the future of inclusive capitalism.