Journey

1920 – 1940

It all began at Anand, a place in Kaira district, Gujarat famous for its Dairy Industry. It was ruled by some old players who started their dairy in 1890s and 1910s. However during the 1920s a new entrant called as “Polson”, which was led by a shrewd but clever Parsi businessman known as “Pestonjee Edulji” entered the market. He started supplying Polson butter to the British Army and its milk products soon became a household name. He built a large dairy in Anand in the year 1930. Once he was asked by the Bombay milk scheme whether it was possible for him to supply milk from Anand to Bombay – some 350 kilometers away. Never before had liquid milk travelled such long distances, but Pestonjee was not the man who would let the opportunity go.

He pasteurized milk and transported it to Bombay in a rather primitive fashion in milk cans wrapped up in gunny bags with chilled water poured on the cans. The experiment worked and very soon Bombay became an important market for Polson. With this Pestonjee started developing good relations with the government officials and he would persuade them to make arrangement so that he could get benefit out of it. Pestonjee knew that the main source of milk is the Kaira district so he persuaded the government officials to make arrangements that only Polson dairy could procure milk from the district. His wish was granted and Pestonjee started monopolizing the market; he started selling products to the people at higher prices and started exploiting farmers by paying them less for their produce and since Pestonjee monopolized the market, the milk producers had no option but become the victim of exploitation.

By 1945, the Polson dairy was flourishing and the farmers were getting more and more exploited, leading to animosity among the farmers and hence the seeds of the movements were sown..