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Coorg Fruit Products: Adding spice to life
The American Calypso Pizza tastes tangier with a dash of tomato sauce bottled in a small industry in Kodagu. The pickled Jalapeno slices that spice up sandwiches, burgers, sausages and other such bland dishes in Canada and Australia, are also bottled in the same industry. The sweet, crisp and juicy pineapple and Alphonso mango slices are also processed and packaged (under the brand name of Mycem, Nectar Fresh) at the Coorg Food Products (CFP), a subsidiary of Kodagu District Orange Growers' Co - operative Society, located in Gonikoppa town, 100 kms from Mysore city.
It is not that the tomatoes for sauce or green chillies for the Jalapeno slices or even the canned pineapples and mangoes are grown in Kodagu. In fact, the CFP purchases the tomatoes in bulk from Bangalore and Hassan, green chillies (pepper) from Malur village in Kolar district, gherkins from Hassan, baby corn from Bangalore, mangoes from Kolar, pineapples from Sirsi, Kerala and papayas from Kodagu.
The CFP, which began with the production of orange juice — the raw material being locally available — has now about 30 different products, ranging from bottled drinking water to carbonated drinks to jams, squashes, pickles and canned fruits and vegetables. What had been a sick industry and locked out for more than a decade has turned into a profit-generating industry in the past 15 years, surprisingly in a place like Kodagu where there is scant scope for an industry to survive.
Society's history:
In 1941, Dr. Burns, Agriculture Commissioner (Government of India) visited Coorg (now Kodagu) and met a few orange growers at the Inspection Bungalow in Polibetta. Ivor Bull, Managing Director of Consolidated Coffee Estates Limited (now Tata Coffee Limited), presented the problems of orange growers to Dr. Burns, who in turn asked the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to set up a research station to initiate scientific work on orange cultivation. Subsequently, a small plot of land in Chenankote estate was taken on lease and the orange research station was started. As the area under orange cultivation increased, the research station was shifted to two centres namely Gonikoppa and Chettalli in Kodagu district.
The Kodagu District Orange Growers' Cooperative Society was established the next year (1942) in Polibetta, with Koothanda Poovaiah as its first President. The processing unit CFP was set up in 1970 in Gonikoppa.
The credit for the CFP's revival goes to Cheppudira Arun Machaiah, former MLC and international Karate champion. He took over as the President of the Kodagu District Orange Growers Co - operative Society in 1994 and concentrated on bulk production of a wide range of processed food by outsourcing the raw materials, instead of depending on the locally available raw materials that are scanty and seasonal. The developed transport infrastructure, intensive marketing and communication have helped him too, compared to 20 years ago, when such facilities were under-developed even in a major city like Bangalore.
Recalling his stint as the Society's President since 1994, Arun Machaiah said that when he took over, the Society, which has 1,450 members, had a loan of Rs. 80 lakh, including Rs. 40 lakh as sales tax dues and interest accrued on it, Rs. 7 lakh as employees' salary arrears, Rs. 11 lakh Employees' Provident Fund dues and under other account heads.
"I have cleared the debts and have now succeeded in making the unit into a profit - oriented one. When the factory was up or sale to clear the dues in 1993, I had brought a court injunction and prevented the sale," Machaiah claimed. "After failing in my attempt to market the products locally and in units where other private entrepreneurs are competing, I tried on bulk marketing, which yielded positive results," Machaiah said.
Speaking about competition in the market, Machaiah said, "This is the only food processing industry coming under the Ministry of Cooperation, Government of Karnataka. As such, I am not entitled to make marketing decisions on my own or announce attractive offers like the private entrepreneurs do. They reduce their prices and even offer free gifts to retailers (like 10 bottles of jam free for the purchase of every 100 bottles), which we, as a Society, can't do."
"That is when I thought about killing the competition by producing in bulk," Machaiah said and added that the present turn over was around Rs. 8 crore, with orders for ketchup, Jalapeno slices, jams, squash and other products booked throughout the year.
"Every week we are dispatching at least one container (40 tonnes) to Australia and Canada and more orders are coming in," he said.
Asked about government assistance for the industry, Machaiah said that the former Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy had sanctioned a sum of Rs. 2 crore for setting up a boiler unit, cold storage, warehouse and for buying two vehicles. "Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa reconfirmed the grant in his budget allocation and released Rs. 1 crore, using which, works have been started," Machaiah said.
Speaking about the quality and hygiene aspects, Machaiah said that utmost quality standards were maintained and frequent quality checks of the products through lab analysis were made, as per the CFTRI guidelines.
The industry has to renew its annual permits issued by the Food Processing Order (FPO) and Certificate Of Analysis (COA) based on the lab reports submitted either by the CFTRI or DFRL, Mysore. In fact, CFTRI had provided assistance for setting up the unit.
More than a 100 women work in the unit which has a capacity of 10 tonnes. There are plans to employ 100 more as the CFP is going to diversify into more products like jackfruit and banana chips, palm oil processing etc., for which CFP has approached Forestry College in Ponnampet, Krishi Vijnana Centre in Gonikoppa and the Agriculture University in Bangalore.
About jalapeno:
There are many good reasons to eat jalapenos, apart from being tasty. Besides making a bland dish mouth - watering and tangy, Jalapeno peppers clear your sinuses and give you a runny nose and relieves symptoms of colds such as fever and sore throats. The capsaicin in the peppers has been used for years in ointments and lotions used against joints and muscles pain. Capsaicin has a way of stimulating blood flow when applied to skin.
You can buy ready made packs with pepper as an ingredient to put in your shoes to warm the feet. Sprinkle some pepper powder in your gloves to warm your hands. Amazingly, jalapeno peppers are high in vitamin C. To get the most vitamin C as a daily supplement, you would have to eat about half a cup of them.
Peppers can actually help reduce bleeding and reduce pain. They also have the ability to improve blood flow to the damaged area and can rebuild the stomach tissue.
K. M. Chengappa
Courtesy: Star of Mysore
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