How we make
our ghee

How our Bilona ghee is made, step by step

Bilona ghee is made from curd, not cream. Here is every step of a batch in our kitchen in Gir Somnath, from the milk to the jar that reaches you.

1. 01

   The milk

   Our cow ghee is made only from Gir cow milk, and our buffalo ghee from Jafarabadi buffalo, the local breed. They are grass-fed village animals that graze on village pasture near the Gir forest, from our own herd and partner farmers around us in Gir Somnath. No hormone injections, no milk boosters. We choose partner farmers on a checklist, and a vet visits every partner farm daily.

2. 02

   Curd, overnight

   The milk is set to curd and left overnight, 8 to 12 hours. We never skim cream off the milk. The whole curd goes to the churn.

3. 03

   The churn

   The curd is churned for 30 to 45 minutes until the makkhan, the butter, separates from the buttermilk. This is the Bilona step, and it is why Bilona ghee takes so much milk.

4. 04

   The matki on the chulha

   The makkhan cooks slowly in a matki, a clay pot, on a wood chulha for 45 to 90 minutes. It comes off the flame when the bubbling goes quiet, the milk solids turn golden brown, and it smells of toasted milk.

5. 05

   The taste check

   Varsha Parmar tastes every batch. If she would not serve it at home, it does not go in a jar. A burnt or undercooked batch is never packed.

6. 06

   Your jar, and its video

   We cook after you order, not ahead of time. Your jar is filled and packed, we record it, and the video comes to you on WhatsApp with tracking before it ships.

Only Bilona. What we never do

We make one kind of ghee, the Bilona way, in cow and buffalo. That means there are things you will never find in our kitchen.

Why Bilona ghee costs more

It takes about 30 to 35 litres of Gir cow milk to make 1 kg of our cow ghee, and about 22 to 25 litres of buffalo milk for 1 kg of buffalo ghee. Gir cows give less milk than crossbred dairy cows, and churning whole curd gives less ghee than skimming cream. Add two days of work per batch, a clay pot, and a wood fire, and that is the price: A2 cow ghee at ₹2,399 a litre and buffalo ghee at ₹1,999 a litre.

Per spoon it is smaller than it sounds. A teaspoon is 5 mL, so a litre holds 200 of them: about ₹12 a teaspoon for cow ghee. That is the spoon on your roti or your child's dal.

Why our ghee changes through the year

Small-batch ghee follows the animals and the season. If your jar looks a little different from the last one, this is why.

Our cow ghee always cools grainy, called danedar. That comes from slow cooking and slow cooling.

How we test our ghee

Every month our ghee is lab-tested against the FSSAI standard for ghee. These are the limits it has to meet, and what each one tells you.

We plan to publish each month's report on our Certifications page. Our FSSAI licence, 20725045000021, is printed on every jar and can be checked on foscos.fssai.gov.in.

Who makes it

The Parmar family. More about us on the About page.

Rajesh Parmar

The animals

Looks after the animals, and knows which season the milk is heavy.

Varsha Parmar

Taste check

Tastes every batch before it goes into a jar.

Milan Parmar

Orders and videos

Records the packing video of your jar and sends it to you.