Inside the AmulFed dairy facility in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), India, August 7, 2025, workers package flavored milk. AJIT SOLANKI/AP
In India, where the cow is sacred, the dairy market is awash with adulterated products. The most recent scandal occurred on February 8. In Gujarat, one of the country’s leading dairy producing states, the local crime branch in Sabarkantha uncovered a factory that had been manufacturing synthetic milk and buttermilk for nearly five years using chemicals. Employees at Shree Satya Dairy Products were mixing a host of dangerous substances, including laundry detergent; urea-based fertilizer; caustic soda; refined palm oil and soybean oil; whey powder and skimmed milk powder. For years, hundreds of residents in the Sabarkantha and Mehsana districts consumed this concoction.
The motive was purely profit-driven. With just 300 liters of real milk, the operation produced nearly 1,800 liters of artificial milk each day. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) reported that the hazardous milk stocks were destroyed on site. The factory was shut down, as was another facility producing milk from urea and palm oil.
These revelations followed a December 2025 order from the FSSAI instructing all Indian states to launch a special campaign against adulterated milk, paneer (a fresh cheese) and khoya (a type of condensed milk), targeting contaminants such as detergents and urea.
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