The A2 Cows in Our Gonda Herds, Explained

People ask me a fair question when they hear that PYAAS sources A2 milk from farms in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh: if our herds include Holstein Friesian cows, and not only desi breeds, how can the milk be A2? It is a good question, and answering it honestly is the whole point of this piece. I am Aryan Sharma, and I lead the field side of PYAAS — the farms, the collection, the quality. Let me explain, plainly, what the A2 cows in the herd actually are and how we work with them.

No mystique, no marketing gloss. Just how it works on the ground.

What "A2" actually refers to

A2 is not a breed and it is not a brand. It describes a type of protein in the milk. Cow milk carries a protein called beta-casein, and depending on the cow's genetics she produces either the A1 or the A2 variant — or a mix of both. Milk that carries only the A2 beta-casein is what people mean by A2 milk. Many people find it easier on the stomach, though I try to be careful here: the science on digestion is still developing, and I would rather you trust us for our honesty than for a health claim I cannot fully stand behind.

The key thing to hold onto is this: A2 is decided cow by cow, by genetics. It is not automatic for a whole breed and it is not something you can add later. A cow either produces A2 milk or she does not.

Why our Gonda herds are mixed

Our partner farms in Gonda keep two kinds of cattle: Holstein Friesian and Sahiwal. Sahiwal is a hardy indigenous breed, well suited to the heat of Uttar Pradesh, and indigenous desi cows are more likely to carry the A2 genetics. Holstein Friesian is a European breed prized for its yield; many carry the A1 variant, but — and this matters — individual Holstein cows can and do produce A2 milk too.

So a real working herd is not neatly "all A2" or "all A1". It is a mix of animals, and inside that mix sit the A2 cows in the herd. Our job is not to pretend a whole herd is something it is not. Our job is to find the cows that genuinely produce A2 milk and keep their milk honest and separate.

How we identify the A2 cows in the herd

This is where the real work lives. Rather than slap an "A2" label on a tank and hope for the best, we work alongside our farmers to identify which individual animals produce A2 milk, and we keep that milk apart from the rest right at collection. It is slower and more finicky than pooling everything together — and that, honestly, is a big part of why most milk you buy cannot tell you where it came from.

Every batch is quality checked before it moves, and this is the part I am proudest of: every pack will carry a QR code that ties it back to the farm, the farmer, and that batch's quality record. That is what our promise, Know Your Milk, means in practice. You should not have to take my word for any of it. You should be able to scan and see it for yourself.

The farms and the people behind them

The A2 cows I am describing are not abstractions. They live on farms run by people we know by name. Sri Radha Mohan Dairy Farm, with a herd of 76 cows, is run by a farmer named Ram. Gonard Dairy is run by Harsh Singh. Ranjeet Singh Dairy Farm is run by Ranjeet Singh. When you buy from PYAAS, you are buying from these farms, and you can meet them on our farms page.

Building the trust to keep the A2 milk separate, to record every batch, and to stand behind a farmer's name on a pack — that relationship is the real product. The cows are where it starts, not where it ends.

What comes next

Today, our A2 Bilona cow ghee is live and shipping across India, made in this same careful way. Our fresh A2 cow milk is next: we are launching in Lucknow from August 2026 and expanding across Uttar Pradesh from there. When that milk reaches you, it will come from the A2 cows in these Gonda herds — identified one animal at a time, kept separate, quality checked, and traceable to the farm by QR.

That is the whole idea behind PYAAS. Not a bigger claim than we can keep, but a smaller one we can prove. I would rather earn your trust one honest pack at a time. — Aryan Sharma