The smell of butter wafts in the air as one drives through the Kunnathur Road at Uthukuli in Tiruppur district. This stretch is home to around a dozen dairy units that produce the famed Uthukuli butter, which continues to be in demand across and even outside the State for over six decades.
At the Avarampalayam Sarvodaya Sangh dairy unit, established in 1989 under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, the work begins early in the morning. The unit’s manager, P. Rasu, says dairy farmers from the surrounding villages such as Pappampalayam, Vengalapalayam and Chengapalli in Tiruppur district and Thippampalayam and Kodumanal villages in Erode district supply cream to the dairy units in Uthukuli. The farmers use cream separators in their villages to separate the cream from the milk. About 10 kg of cream yields eight kg of butter.
So, what makes the ‘Uthukuli butter’ special?
