In 1949, Kurien was sent by the Government of India to run its experimental creamery at Anand, where he set up the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union in 1950 which later became Amul.

[2][4] Kurien wanted to join the Indian army as an engineer but instead he worked with Tata Steel Technical Institute in Jamshedpur.

[2][8] He spent the evenings helping Tribhuvandas Patel with fixing the dairy equipment used for processing the milk procured from the local farmers.

[16] Kurien wanted to quit the government job and leave Anand but was persuaded by Patel to stay with him and help with his dairy cooperative.

[17][18] Kurien developed the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited (KDCMPUL) further which later became Amul.

[22] Kurien worked on the belief that economic self-interest of all sections of the village-society would make them align together to grow their cooperative and remove caste or class conflicts.

[37] During the Sino-Indian War in 1962, production had to be diverted to the Indian armed forces which led Polson to gain market share.

[39][40] When then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri visited Anand to inaugurate Amul's cattle feed factory in October 1964, he interacted with the dairy farmers about their cooperative.

[42][43] Kurien negotiated with FAO and UNICEF of the United Nations, and the World Bank for aid to develop the cooperatives as a part of "Operation Flood".

[44][45] In the first phase between 1970 and 1979, he focused on choosing the 18 best milk sheds across the country, setting up dairy cooperatives and linking them with nearby major cities, to capture the market there.

It involved scaling up infrastructure to increase procurement and production, establishment dairy processing facilities, focus on marketing and training management professionals.

[45] In the 1990s, he lobbied and fought hard to keep multinational companies from entering the dairy business even as the country opened up due to liberalisation in 1991.

[48] India became the world's largest milk producer by 1998, surpassing the United States and contributed to about 17 percent of global output in 2010–11.

While she was focused on production and yield targets with certain functions such as marketing handed over to private, Kurien felt that the arrangement would weaken the cooperative institutions of the country.

[83] Kurien either headed or was on the boards of several public institutions and received honorary doctorate degrees from universities worldwide.

[85][86] Filmmaker Shyam Benegal wanted to make Manthan, a film story based on Amul but had no financial backing.

[90][91][92] In 2013, Amar Chitra Katha published the comic Verghese Kurien: The man with the billion litre idea.