AGRI BUSINESS & FOOD INDUSTRY by MediaTodayPvtLtd

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AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

CMYK

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

CMYK

inside... 8

cover story

Restaurant & Food Industry

Hit Hard

Food Safety and Hygiene Remain a Major Concern for People While Dining Out

6 Editorial 14 Food Business

FOOD TRUCK Business Booming

Customers Remain Reluctant to Sit at Restaurants

18 Functional Food Dairy Probiotics A Best Source of Functional Foods 20 Tie-Ups UAE’s Food Security Plan & India-UAE Synergy 22 F&V Sector Convective Hot Air Drying of Vegetables & Fruits Process Optimization — Dr. Smita Lele, Director, ICT Jalna 26 Ingredients Antifreeze Proteins (Afp) A Promising Ingredient in Food Applications — S. G. Dharini Sinehaa, R Chandrakala 28 Technology Bühler Gives Leading IQF Processor to Global Fruit and Vegetable Markets

August 2020

30 Introduces Choozit® BC 02 to help Pizza Cheese Makers expand their business News Roundup 31 CCD Probe Reveals Rs 3,500 Crore Fund Diversion Gives Clean Chit to I-T Department 32 Pizza Hut, KFC recovering fast as people order online 32 ‘Immunity laddoos’ are selling like hot cakes 33 Swiggy launches healthy food discovery interface on its app 34 Nestle India April-June net profit up 11% to Rs 486.60 crore 34 Deadline to display 'best before', mfg date for loose sweets extended till Oct 1: FSSAI 35 ITC's business crosses Rs 10,000 cr sales milestone in FY20, Rs 600 cr short of Britannia 35 Parle Agro locks horns with Walmart India in the Bombay HC over its product Appy Fizz 36 Starbucks says business 'steadily recovering' as stores reopen 36 McDonald's to require masks at all US restaurant locations

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

Editorial...

Chief Editor S. Jafar Naqvi Chief Co-ordinator M.B. Naqvi Editorial Co-ordinator Syed M K Layout & Design Faiyaz Ahmad Mohd. Iqbal Head Office New Delhi: : +91-11-29535848 / 29535593 / 29535872 abfienquiry@gmail.com

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ue to the pandemic, Restaurant businesses have been running cold. Restaurants throughout the world are facing the toughest challenge of the century. The failing numbers of restaurants are a severe prompt of the deteriorating restaurant economy plagued by job losses and salary cuts. As a remedial solution, multiple foodrelated platforms has started offering rescue packages to help businesses as well as their staff; be it kitchen, service or housekeeping. Such as, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has been actively working to safeguard the businesses with several measures. One of them, called Rise for Relief is a virtual cash program aimed at diners. One can buy virtual cash or vouchers of member restaurants worth Rs. 1000, valued at a marked-down rate of Rs. 750. The complete payment is divided into two parts — pay Rs. 250 now and Rs. 500 later while dining-in at the restaurant whose voucher is being purchased. Indian Flair Bartenders Association (IFBA) has also set up a donation drive for not just bartenders, but also hospitality staff in housekeeping, kitchen, administration and other departments vital to the hospitality industry. Likewise, World’s 50 Best Restaurants have launched a few fund raising initiatives under the 50 Best Recovery programme. One of them is an ongoing social media challenge #50BestRateMyPlate that ends on August 21. In a bid to support delivery staff, Swiggy too announced the Covid relief fund. Swiggy’s co-founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety have committed 50% of his annual salary towards this fund which aims to raise a corpus of Rs. 10 crore. However, with the coming festive season restaurants are attempting to stand out again. Innovation ought to be the driving force when creating a new restaurant or hotel concept. In celebration of India’s Independence Day, without rectifying a few settings that drive the restaurant industry will not rise correctly to the call of the pandemic. Times of crises, when most run afraid, are times when daring innovators find room to play, grow and make history. With the ups and downs in the current pandemic, gaining customers’ loyalty requires a clearly articulated and marketed character and personality. Every day, Covid is hastening the demise of restaurants run by operators who rushed to fill a niche and cash in on the success of others, choosing to copy rather than innovate and create something to inspire an untapped hunger in their customers. No one anticipated this pandemic, and, so, the fall of the industry has been sudden and catastrophic. For Indian hospitality to remain deliciously sustainable in the post-Covid era, one must tackle inequity and inequality in business practices. Integrity and intuition must work hand in hand with innovation and inspiration to prevent injustice from creeping into the work environments. Atithi devo bhava is the belief that when a guest arrives at doors, God arrives with them. The hospitality industry must strive to create that celestial abode for the customers by treating every human being who sits at table as a reflection of the divine. India must shine through her restaurants and hotels. As we rethink food service and the restaurants of tomorrow, let us shine light upon our nation’s deeply delicious, mindfully rich and highly localised culinary traditions.

Happy Independence Day!!!

Editor : S. Jafar Naqvi Vol 17....... Issue 8 ...... August, 2020

July 2020

Comments are welcome at: editorialmtpl@gmail.com Views expressed by individuals and contributors in the magazine are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of “AgriBusiness & Food Industry” editorial board. AgriBusiness & Food Industry does not accept any responsibility of any direct, indirect or consequential damage caused to any party due to views expressed by any one or more persons in the trade. All disputes are to be referred to Delhi Jurisdiction only. .....Editor

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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Restaurant & Food Industry

Hit Hard Food Safety and Hygiene Remain a Major Concern for People While Dining Out

he restaurant industry is probably to be the first industry to recover itself. Contactless dining & the concept of drive-through are gaining momentum, paper menus are getting replaced by digital and QR codes, according to food business honchos. The brunt on businesses has been enormous as the Covid-19 outbreak impacts various segments of the sector. In the restaurant industry alone, 40% of businesses had shut in March which might not ever open again. Conversely, as India moves through Unlock

2.0, technology only can help businesses not just to recover from the impact but also to grow. There is an insistent need to help retailers better understand the role of technology in reviving business post-lockdown, rebuilding consumer confidence, and innovating for the consumer. A recent webinar hosted by Retailers Association of India, titled ‘Retail Technology and the Big Reset’, powered by foodtech company Dineout, also aimed at equipping retailers with some ground-breaking technologies that could

benefit businesses. “The food industry was operational even during the world wars. Never has the industry been shut like this,” said Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Dineout. “The shock of the pandemic has worn off, businesses, as well as people. Everyone is preparing to come out of the impact right now. Restaurants or retail businesses need to learn to get the two together—getting people to go out and at the same time ensuring social distancing norms are followed. Alongside, technology is going to play a very important role in

The food industry was operational even during the world wars. Never has the industry been shut like this. The shock of the pandemic has worn off, businesses, as well as people Ankit Mehrotra Co-Founder & CEO, Dineout

August 2020

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

this entire process across all industries,” added Mehrotra. Kiran Komatla, SVP - IT, Burger King India Pvt. Ltd. said, “Technology needs to be smarter, interactive and needs to understand customers’ behaviour better to be able to make better suggestions. This is a wave, which will just keep moving forward.” Trends to Rule Post Covid Food safety and hygiene remain a concern for people and it will be a major concern going forward when they will be dining out. Covid-19 has changed how Indian’s have been dining for ages. Nowadays, people are looking at more convenient, healthy and safe food. They are also looking at how the food is being packed, what’s the source, how is it travelling all the way when ordered online looking at the hygiene standards. DIY Kits: DIY kits have also become the new cool these days as many restaurants

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cover story have started this concept where they let people do the assembling, preparing and cooking, using all the fresh ingredients which are provided by them. “It’s simply a substitute to dining out and a good family activity. And then a happy meal equals to happy family,” shared Saurabh Khanijo, Owner and MD, Kylin who has launched his DIY range of sauces during the pandemic. Safety & Hygiene: Food safety and hygiene is the most important focus for any establishment currently both for delivery and backend operations at the kitchen. “Every customer is concerned about hygiene & safety. Celebrities, regular guests, bureaucrats, corporate clients, families and everyone are currently ordering through us and we need to serve them appropriately,” added Vishal Jindal, Co-Founder, Biryani by Kilo. Fitness/ Healthy Food: Healthy food categories are picking steam with Covid-19 spreading across the globe. People are looking at healthier eating options when dining or ordering food at home. Good Packing Standards: Packaging is the key part of any delivery industry.

Food should be packed with flavours intact and spill proof. The client should experience convenient and comfort packaging so that he can consume the food easily without any hassle. “We are trying to adapt the eco-friendly packaging. In a rapidly changing and challenging environment, we want to deliver hygienically approved packaging so that customer feels safe and ensured,” shared Anshu Raj, Founder, Caterspoint. “Also the packaging should contain basic information that will let the client know about the brand and the product,” he added. Contactless Dining/ Delivery: There’s no denying that contactless dining will be the future of restaurant business. With the unlock, restaurants are resuming their dinein service by employing contactless dine-in processes, wherein right from accessing the menu via QR codes placed on the table to making payments, the entire process is made digital. With contactless services in place, restaurants have upgraded their digital assets including the website, m-site and mobile app for a faster, easier and more seamless experience. “Post unlock, more people are moving out of

their homes for work and they need access to safe and hygienic food. Our contactless services ensure trust, safety and hygiene in every bite of the meal. We have been responsive to customer needs in the new normal by offering value deals and innovative contactless experiences across platforms while ensuring that our team members and guests feel safe, valued, and cared for,” pointed Neha, Marketing Director, Pizza Hut India. A Bleak Future The restaurant industry has entered its fifth month of lockdown. Millions of entrepreneurs are left with nothing but debt, outstanding bills and a future which holds no sureness on business going forward. Restaurant owners feel it’s not going to be business as usual once the lockdown is lifted. Reopening is going to be an expensive affair with additional expenses to comply with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Amid this condition, restaurants look at a bleak future. Also, it’s dodgy that vendors will supply essentials to restaurants on credit anymore. Restaurant owners remain in doubt about whether they will be able to generate even half of the kind of revenue which they did in pre-Covid times.

Jaydeep Mukherjee, Brand Head at Smoke House Deli told that there will be an huge amount of investment that will have to be made just to follow the basic mandate. "We will have to place acrylic sheets between tables, complete exhaust system, air filters will have to be installed and the list goes on and on." Mukherjee adds that maintaining social-distancing norms at restaurants would mean losing 50% of the customers; hence revenues will take a hit as well. All these measures make the situation dismal and terrible for restaurant owners forcing them to shut shops. According to Mukherjee, innovations like DIY food kits have helped home delivery sales but that won’t be sustainable to run the business and cover costs for too long. The industry is staring at a 4050% decline in its revenue. It’s because of this financial stress that the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) expects over one-third of restaurants to not survive the ongoing lockdown. Anurag Katriyar, President at NRAI said that we are looking at failure rate of 30-40% -- restaurants never opening up again. The damage doesn’t end here as with every passing month of lockdown another 5%

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cover story of restaurants will bite the dust. The restaurant industry provides direct employment to millions of Indians and a scenario where over onethird of the restaurants face survival crisis would mean nothing less than a disaster for the job market in this industry. Katriyar adds that the F&B sector is the largest employer of human capital after agriculture, providing direct employment to 7.3 million people and 30-40% restaurants shutting down would mean 3-3.5 million jobs being lost. To offset some damage, NRAI has been seeking some relaxation for the industry such as allowing restaurants to claim Input Tax Credit on GST and extending the business licences of restaurants till the end of current financial year.

gourmet Qmin Shop in subsequent months to pick up the business. "IHCL's landmark hotels in Kolkata have pioneered various cuisines and culinary innovations for over three decades and it is our privilege to bring that experience from our signature restaurants to our guests in the comfort of their homes," said Manish Gupta, Area Director - East.

Home Delivery of Food In the wake of the pandemic, Indian Hotels Company Ltd. started home delivery of dishes from its restaurants of Taj and Vivanta in Kolkata. In the first phase, guests can order from four iconic restaurants namely the Chinoiserie, Sonargaon and Cal27 from Taj Bengal, Kolkata and Mynt from Vivanta Kolkata EM Bypass. A Qmin mobile application will also be launched followed by a

Food Trucks Now that people are cautious about going out for lunch or dinner, many restaurants are coming to them—in food trucks. From Kylin and Mainland China to Domino’s Pizza, many restaurant chains are taking food trucks – where consumers can see chefs preparing foods in a safe and hygienic manner, wearing masks and face-shields – to housing societies across cities at a time.

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Technology needs to be smarter, interactive and needs to understand customers’ behaviour better to be able to make better suggestions. This is a wave, which will just keep moving forward Kiran Komatla SVP - IT, Burger King India Pvt. Ltd.

“We are saying, rather than I coming to your doorstep and delivering, you come to my doorstep, that too in the same society,” said Khanijo, who has his food trucks criss-crossing various societies in Delhi NCR. Domino’s Pizza, which used to send food trucks to parties, marriages and festivals including Durga Puja before the pandemic, now is sending them into the gated communities and societies in Gurgaon, Noida and Bengaluru. “At the end of the day, everything is becoming contactless,” said Anjan Chatterjee, Managing Director of Speciality Restaurants that operates Mainland China chain. Speciality is planning to operate food-trucks in Delhi and is in the process of procuring permissions for such operations in Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Restaurants in The Lalit hotels

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in various places are shut, but they have placed food trucks at the porches of the five-star chain’s properties in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, where consumers can pick up various food items, including churros, tacos, burgers and pizza slices among others that are ordered online. “In this market even if I am doing 50% of the business, I am fine,” said Khanijo. He said he is happy that the concept is relatively getting better acceptance from consumers. “People are welcoming us as they were sick and tired of cooking at home,” he said. “So slowly and steadily it is picking up.” Kylin used to operate food trucks in gated communities even prior to the Covid-19 outbreak when each of its Wanchai by Kylin food trucks generated sales of about Rs 40,000 per day. “Now many societies in Noida and Gurgaon have started giving

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cover story us permissions to operate again,â&#x20AC;? Khanijo said. Reinvented and Innovated "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well," wrote Virginia Woolf in another time and another context. Decades later, as COVID-19 continues its spread, the words echo the wistful longing of those itching to get back to one aspect of normalcy -- a nice restaurant, convivial company and great food. That vision of 'dining out' had receded into the past for many of India's urban elite, but it's time finally to press the reset button as the industry gets into high gear to welcome back diners after lockdown. As the country grapples with the crisis, the F&B industry is reinventing itself in keeping with the times. In a slow, incremental process of pulling themselves out of a slump, several businesses have started with online deliveries and many are also trying to reestablish diningin with the help of digital solutions. Social distancing, open kitchens, meticulous sanitising, minimal contact with restaurant staff and digital menus are some steps being taken to infuse confidence. Umesh Trivedi, Shift Manager at Blue Tokai, told that digital solutions have been implemented ever since the store opened for dining-in in June. "Although we have hardly received any crowds at the cafe since we opened, the QR codes are a better option just in case there is a queue. The customers can check the menu, order from their seats by scanning the code," Trivedi said. While Blue Tokai's digital menu is an in-house solution, new tech entrants such as My Menu and Fastor that offer

their clients the knowhow of contactless, self-ordering QR codes are also gaining pace in the Indian service market. The owners believe adapting to change is the only way to sustain business in the current scenario. By scanning a computer-generated code on each table, a customer is directed to a digital menu on his smartphone. The menu allows them to order from the comfort of their seats and even checkout after the meal, leading to minimum interaction with the restaurant staff. "Restaurateurs are already adapting to the new normal as they want their businesses to recoup whereas consumers are eager to venture out and dine safely. We are getting requests from not just fivestars but from mid-level restaurants too as they want to opt for solutions that will encourage the consumer to dine at their place," Neeren Tiwari, Country Head of My Menu India. My Menu, which launched in India in March, has worked with 600 restaurants, including Taj Hotels, Radisson, Novotel, Ibis, Mercure, Shiro, and Biryani Batuta. Fastor, another tech start-up, is offering similar services. "When people come to know that a certain restaurant is taking care of minimum touch points and giving the same service then they will want to come and eat. So self checkout platforms like Fastor are the need of the hour for the hospitality industry," said Karan Sood, Co-Founder, Fastor. The other strategy is for food outlets to reinforce online delivery systems and expand business with cloud kitchens instead of dining outlets. In a cloud kitchen model, a business only offers online delivery of food, AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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restricting staff and customer interaction to the minimum. After venturing into the Indian F&B industry in 2017 and with five outlets in Delhi and Gurgaon, Malaysian Quick-Service Restaurant (QSR) brand Momo King has decided to expand into cloud kitchens in the current situation. "Due to minimal physical interaction of the consumers with the outside world, the F&B industry is currently observing a surge in online orders. This has further inspired us to initiate cloud kitchens and cater to the patrons with our deliveryonly model," said Shyam Narayan Thakur, Momo King Founder. The food chain has opened five cloud kitchens in Delhi-NCR and plans to expand to 20-25 such kitchens by the year-end. "The idea behind these kitchens is to eliminate the traditional dine-in experience and focus exclusively on online food deliveries as it would help us in minimising personal interaction between the staff and the customers," Thakur added. Harjas, owner of Capri

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Wings that dishes out Italian food, said the pandemic has hit the hospitality industry the worst with sales down to "20-30% of the pre-covid numbers". Harjas said they have been providing in house accommodation to the chefs in their Noida kitchen "to absolutely reduce contact with outside personnel". "Since we are a delivery only kitchen, and no dine-in is offered currently, we are working on safety and hygiene aspects of our kitchen and employees," he added. “We have to start from scratch — be it hiring staff or ordering fresh produce,” said Amrut Mehta, Director, Little Italy group of restaurants. During the first phase of the lockdown, Little Italy offered DIY kits that enabled customers to cook its Italian specials at home. The trend was such a hit that the chain was encouraged to start Acasa, a gourmet grocery delivery service of ingredients used in their restaurants. “The first lockdown forced people to cook and we decided to deliver fresh, high-quality produce and gourmet

products like premium pastas,” added Mehta. Akanksha Chaudhury, Assistant Director (Sales And Marketing), JSM Corporation which owns restaurants Shiro and Hard Rock Cafe said, “During the unlock phase, we opened our restaurants only in Bengaluru because it seemed to be the safest city. But now, it seems so dicey, so our focus is on deliveries. We plan to expand our network of dark kitchens.” Beverage outlet Chaayos is also innovating by creating teas catering to moment. “Safety, immunity and health are keywords. We’re creating immunity-boosting beverages like turmeric milk, turmeric tea and cardamom green tea. These are available on e-commerce platforms,” said Co-Founder, Raghav Verma. Rise Above It’s never been easy to

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make money in the restaurant industry. So when a crisis of the magnitude of the Covid-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close, and their revenue drops to zero overnight, things get particularly dire. Rebuilding that confidence and trust needs to begin with empathy and respect for restaurant employees who will be a new contingent of frontline workers in the fight against Covid-19 as well as the culture carriers and custodians of the restaurant experience. The most important thing we are all facing is really the confidence and comfort that guests are going to have when they come back to the restaurants. That’s going to be the biggest hurdle, regardless of the guidelines that the government is giving. Until people get comfortable with that, nothing’s going to happen.

Way Forward l Barcodes and QR codes for purchases in physical stores. l Scaling down the number of items on menu. l Doubled delivery radiuses. l Contactless dining. l Drive-through concept. l Capacity management. l Safety and hygiene. l Ticket size deliveries by QSR. l The preferred online channel. l Availability of inventory. Advice for Retailers l Adopt digital real-time connections to drive better customer experience. l Become digitally savvy with communication and payments. l Focus on inventory accuracy; it is of utmost importance to brave through this pandemic. l Place QR Codes/barcodes across at various strategic and vantage points. l Use suggestive selling as it is going to drive more digital sales. l Communicate to employees and customers that you care for them. l Create SOPs and communicate them through digital channels.

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Food business

Food Truck Business Booming

Customers Remain Reluctant to Sit at Restaurants

oronavirus has changed everything, including how one eats, and the blow on the food industry canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be overstated. The restaurant industry saw a huge loss in revenue. The number soared gradually, but the anxiety goes beyond sobering statistics. Despite all the doom and gloom, however, there are a few food entrepreneurs who are actually growing their businesses. Creatively incorporating order ahead and mobility to reach the customers are the two things that hold the keys to success in the post covid restaurant industry.

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Unfortunately, many of the food businesses that existed just a few months ago will not recover. The fact that some are thriving, however, makes hopeful about what the long-term future holds. One thing is for sure that the demand for food services is still there, but in different formats. Bringing Meals To Customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Doorsteps With the restaurant industry on hold for the foreseeable future, innovative brick-and-mortar establishments are turning towards mobile dining to navigate the new market.

Here comes the concept of Food Trucks that are popping up and selling a custom menu. They set up an order-ahead option so that customers could pick up their food, and even allow public to request where and when the truck should show up. The customer focused approach paired with the truckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mobility meant showing up where there was existing demand, and it generated a good amount of daily revenue. An increased demand has being seen to bring food into communities, specifically neighbourhoods and apartment buildings. Unlike delivery, a food

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truck showing up creates a culinary event to break up the monotony and in addition, the food is prepared fresh and on location. People still crave the community aspect of eating out, and some trucks have capitalized on that demand. In a market where food must go to consumers (not vice versa), being constrained to a single location, can be a disadvantage. To this, mobility is now a necessity to reach customers in their homes or as they start to visit parks, open spaces, and other areas. Order-Ahead Instantly Increases Sales Mobility combined

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food Business

with order-ahead has been the winning combination during the pandemic. For the customer, order-ahead allows for a safer experience and they still get hot, fresh food from a truck, without standing in line with potentially large crowds. This kind of swift, efficient service is a major draw for healthconscious consumers who still want to participate in getting a delicious meal. In some cases, over 50% revenue has come from orderahead sales. The coalescence of order-ahead and mobile dining recreates food experiences for a changing world; it preserves some social aspects of eating out, but does so while minimizing health risks now associated with indoor dining. Sailing through Lockdown The shutting down of the food truck businesses crept upon slowly during the initial days of lockdown, even as the food truck business is growing again at this instant. “Retail orders dropped rapidly, permissions for visits were being withdrawn by worried RWAs and soon the businesses were down to 10%,” shared Jyoti Ganapathi of DosaInc. that operates

food trucks in residential and corporate hubs in Delhi-NCR. “A lockdown seemed imminent, and if we remained open and tried to operate the way we usually do, we would only be increasing our expenses. So we decided to shut down for a period, reassess and start again,” she added. “Before we sent off the staff, we had to deal with our stocks - perishables, dry items, the inventory of packing materials, etc. We preserved every last bit of perishable item by pureeing, pickling, cutting and freezing,” added Jyoti. The point was to limit waste so that they wouldn't have to spend to get started again. And to be sure, this effort held them in good stead “when we did re-open, we had enough and more to take us through the month of

lockdown without a penny to be spent on restocking,” she said. Suspending services midway, without a whole regular income and with little reserves, the entrepreneurs found it very hard to cover the fixed cost, the vendor payments or the payroll cost. Survival Game As a food truck, they would go into gated communities, parks, take orders, serve and deliver. But RWA’s didn’t considered letting food trucks inside the gated and non-gated communities. So the revival is tentative. Alongside food truck business, choosing an alternate business line segment is something to sail through during this hard time. “We launched packaged snacks, to be made to order

and delivered,” said Jyoti. “Each day is still a struggle and day to day planning is the most important step forward.” ITC Turns To Food Trucks In a bid to ensure seamless supply of essential items to consumers, ITC has overhauled its distribution network and come up with a number of innovative solutions to reach the consumer’s doorstep. The company has adopted a twopronged strategy to reach its atta, biscuits, spices, juices and hygiene products to retail stores and consumers. The company has stitched together several partnerships with national and local partners to deliver products to the doorstep of consumers through its ‘Store on Wheels’ initiative. This initiative is currently available across

To provide support to consumers during such trying times, we decided to address the distribution challenge in line with our core principles of innovation, agility and empathy B Sumant Executive Director, ITC Limited

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Food business

six cities in the country and could be extended further in times to come. The initiative has partnered with housing societies in metros like Apna Complex, My gate, No broker and Azgo to supply essential products to housing societies across key cities. Housing societies can order ITC’s Food Truck through these local apps for shopping at their doorstep. “With our huge apartment base across India, we can help ITC to scale up their direct-to-customer model very quickly,” said ApnaComplex CEO Raja Sekhar Kommu. ITC is also leveraging its direct-to-consumer portal itcstore.in. For last-mile delivery, it has tied up with e-commerce

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players like Zomato, Dunzo, Swiggy and even Domino’s. These emerging channels are likely to become main-stream in the new normal even after the pandemic passes. Commenting on the new distribution model, ITC Executive Director, B Sumant said, “To provide support to consumers during such trying times, we decided to address the distribution challenge in line with our core principles of innovation, agility and empathy. Our unique partnerships with food delivery chains, consumer food apps, community e-commerce brands, and our own direct to consumer portal have been instrumental in providing timely supply of essentials to consumers

during the lockdown and thereby ensuring that people remained confined to their homes”. 'Being Haangryy' Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, ever since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country, has left no stone unturned in helping the poor and the needy. He had donated for the daily wage workers. Recently, he even provided food packets for the local villagers who have been in need, from his Panvel farmhouse. After initiating the ‘Anna Daan Challenge’, he came up with a new idea of donating food through his food truck. He has started his own food truck with the name “Being

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Haangryy”. Shiv Sena leader Rahul Kanal thanked the actor for doing his bit and tweeted, "Thank you @ Beingsalmankhan bhai for being there and silently doing something which is needed, service to mankind is service to the almighty!!! Jai Ho!!! I shall surely try and do my bit following the lockdown norms and request our Fanclub family to practice the same #BeingHaangryy." Dining Out Not Going Away The majority of people would still feel uncomfortable going to restaurants even once restrictions are lifted, unfortunately meaning Covid19’s effects on the restaurant industry will be long lasting. However, no matter what happens, people need to eat, and food has an intrinsic link to community, occasion and ceremony. It is expected that the demand for food truck types will grow as mobility and order-ahead both becoming necessities. Together, they allow food businesses to reach customers where they live, work and play -- and give everyone all a taste of what the world was like before this madness just months ago.

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Functional Food

Dairy Probiotics

A Best Source of Functional Foods

robiotics, often called ‘good’ or ‘helpful’ bacteria, are defined as the living microorganisms administered in a sufficient number to survive in the intestinal ecosystem. They must have a positive effect on the host. The term probiotic was first used in 1965 to describe the substances secreted by one microorganism that stimulate the growth of another. A powerful evolution of this definition was coined in 1974, it proposed that probiotics are organisms and substances which contribute to intestinal microbial balance. In 1998 probiotics were defined as the food which contains live bacteria beneficial to health”, whereas in 2001 it was defined as microbial cell preparations or components of microbial cells that have a beneficial effect on the health and well-being.

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The term ‘functional food’ itself was first used in Japan, in the 1980s, for food products fortified with special constituents that possess advantageous physiological effects. Functional foods may improve the general conditions of the body (e.g. pre and probiotics), decrease the risk of some diseases (e.g. cholesterol-lowering products), and could even be used for curing some illnesses. Functional foods are those that contain 1 or more compound that provide important or limited functions in the organism, promoting welfare and health, or for reduction in the risk and protection of hypertension, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, and heart diseases. Probiotics are defined as “live microbial feed supplements which

beneficially affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance” It is estimated that over 400 species of bacteria, separated into two broad categories, habitat in the human gastrointestinal tract. The categories are B. fidobacterium and Lactobacillus Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and bifidobacteria are the most common types of microbes

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used as probiotics; but certain yeasts and bacilli may also be helpful. Probiotics are commonly consumed as part of fermented foods with specially added active live cultures; such as in yoghurt, soy yoghurt, or as dietary supplements. Probiotic dairy products The most common probiotic dairy products

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Functional Food

worldwide are various types of yoghurt, other fermented dairy product, various lactic acid bacteria drinks and mixture of probiotic (fermented) milks and fruit juice. Probiotic cheese, both fresh and ripened, have also been launched recently. Fermented milks and beverages Fermented milks and beverages make up an important contribution to the human diet in many countries because fermentation is an inexpensive technology, which preserves the food, improves its nutritional value and enhances its sensory properties. Fermented beverages are the most traditional and consumed probiotics media for dairy and non-dairy products. Fermentation is usually an inexpensive process, requires a low-cost technology, and improves nutrition and sensory profiles of food. Moreover, many media can be used for these types of products: milk, cereals, fruits, roots, or even mixture of these. Yoghurt It is well known that yoghurt is the most used medium to incorporate probiotic bacteria in foods.

Ice cream and Dessert Ice creams are food products that show great potential for use as vehicles for probiotic cultures, with the advantage of being foods consumed by all age groups. Although several factors in their processing stages should be optimized, to maintain the microorganisms in viable doses capable of providing therapeutic activity to consumers, these probiotic cultures usually do not modify significantly the sensory features of ice creams and frozen desserts. It depends on the microorganism and the technological conditions employed to develop the product. Cheeses Another medium for probiotic inoculation is cheese. Its versatility offers

opportunities for many marketing strategies as a probiotic food carrier. However, the development of probiotic cheeses implies obligatory knowledge of all their processing steps, as well as on their level of influence (positive or negative) on the survival of these microorganisms, sensory acceptance, chemical stability, and microbiological conditions throughout their shelf life. The manufacture of probiotic cheese should have minimum changes when compared to traditional products, which makes the production of functional cheeses favourable. Other dairy probiotic products The dairy industry, in particular, regards probiotic cultures as tools for the development of new functional products. Yoghurts and fermented milks are still the main vehicles for incorporation of probiotic cultures. However, new products are being introduced in the international market, such as milk-based desserts, powdered milk for newborn infants, ice cream, butter, mayonnaise, various types of cheese; products in the form of capsules or powders to be dissolved in cold drinks, and

fermented foods of vegetable origin. Potential Development of probiotic food is an expensive and multistage process that takes into account many factors, such as sensory acceptance, physical and microbial stability, price, and chemical and other intrinsic functional properties to be successful in the marketplace. Moreover, consumer expectation toward the product also needs to be understood and taken into consideration. Regarding the dairy probiotic products, it has been observed that such foods have been widely explored by industry and by scientific researchers due to their health appeal and continuously increasing demand by consumers. Probiotic functional foods, being one of the largest markets of functional foods, represent a huge growth potential for the food industry and may be explored through the development of innovative ingredients, processes, and products. However, it is a challenge to develop probiotic and other functional foods that can both indulge consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; eating desire while also providing potential health benefits. Some dairy probiotic products developed worldwide 1. Acidophilus milk drink 2. Synbiotic acidophilus milk 3. Regular full-fat yoghurts 4. Low-fat yoghurts 5. Stirred fruit yoghurts 6. Cheddar cheese 7. Acidophilus milk-based ice cream 8. Dahi 9. Mango soy fortified probiotic yoghurt! 10. Probiotic ice cream

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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tie-ups

UAE’s Food Security Plan &

India-UAE Synergy Sudhakar Tomar, Chairman & Managing Director of UAE’s homegrown US$ 2 Billion Agri & Food multinational Hakan Agro DMCC and President of UAE & India governmentsponsored 'India Middle East Agro Trade Investment & Investment Forum ( IMEA-TIIF), gives an comprehensive overview on UAE's Food Security Plan and India-UAE synergy. What is the current state of Food Security? We are far away from being food secure if we go by the technical definition of Food security which is defined as when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Although theoretically enough food is available for 7.8 billion people on the planet; unfortunately Right Food at the Right Time at the Right Place and most importantly at the Right Price is still not available. Almost a billion people suffer from hunger and do not have access to clean drinking water resulting in 35,000 deaths every day. Ironically over 2 billion people suffer from obesity and almost 1.3 billion tonnes of edible food worth US$ 2.6 trillion is wasted which otherwise could feed 3 billion people. Food & Agriculture are a 5 trillion dollar food system essential for our survival. The whole world needs to take some serious steps to fix these global anomalies for a sustainable future. Is UAE Food secure? Less than 4% UAE’s land is fit for agriculture and lack of fresh water, intense summer heat, low rainfall and periodic locust swarms pose major challenges to the agriculture. Because

August 2020

of these problems, UAE considers food security a critical part of homeland security and even has a dedicated Minister of Food Security & Climate Change. Despite the challenges, UAE features very high in the Global Food Security Index and recently climbed to 21st position amongst 113 countries. Every year about 14 million tonnes of Food & Beverages is available in UAE from local and imported sources and more than 560 local factories churn up over 6 million tonnes of food products making UAE a food secure place. How did UAE reach number 21 in Global Food Security Index despite the obvious challenges? The Global Food Security Index considers the core issues of affordability, availability, and quality across a set of 113 countries. The index is a

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model, constructed from 34 unique indicators. This index examines food security comprehensively across the three internationally established dimensions, namely: affordability, availability & quality and safety. A fourth dimension that is also weighted is natural resources and resilience. Due to the limited supply of arable land, water, and a heavy reliance on imported food, food security has become a key policy priority for the UAE. Despite importing about 90% of its food supplies, the UAE has considered food secure due to its capacity to purchase food on the international market even if at higher costs. However, food security remains a concern, particularly on a long-term basis, due to supply challenges for production and importation. The degree of any country’s food security is a combination of its natural endowments and its forward-thinking strategies. Even countries that are able to be self-sufficient require strategies that will enable them to withstand acute crises or threats. Any successful food security strategy must incorporate policies that focus on multi-pronged approaches such as, self-sufficiency, trade, resilience, and sustainability. According to the Global Food Security Index (FSI), the five most food-secure countries in the world are

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tie-ups the United States, Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. The UAE was ranked number 31 in 2017 and has jumped to number 21 in 2019. While the United States, Ireland, and Australia have well developed agricultural sectors and an enabling climate, Singapore presents an outlying case. Similar to the UAE, Singapore has limited agricultural land, is reliant on imports, and has insufficient domestic agricultural production. For these reasons, Singapore presents an interesting comparative case for the UAE. A comparison of these countries’ policies gives us insights into best practices that can improve the UAE’s food security strategies and policies. The UAE itself has made substantial investments towards its food security and its benefits from a number of key strengths that have made it food secure. Strong diplomatic and trade relations, easy access to trade markets, and well-functioning trade ports have enabled easy access to food supplies through food import strategies.

and numero uno position in 2051 from the current position of 21 in the Global Food Security Index. The strategy has 5 pillars: Firstly UAE will position itself as a global hub for agri-business trade and diversifying its food import sources and secondly increase local production of food multifold by investing heavily in cutting edge ag-technology but without compromising on sustainability and water footprints. Third and a very important strategy is to reduce the food loss and waste at all levels of food supply chain and fourth point is to ensure and enhance food safety and improving nutritional aspects of food consumption. The final and probably most important strategy for an arid and importdependent nation like UAE is to enhance capacity to respond to food security risks and crises. Learning smartly from the food supply shocks in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2007 UAE has become a shining example of keeping the food supply chains function in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

What is unique about UAE’s Food Security Policy? United Arab Emirates has a robust food security vision. There are three components of UAE’s Food Security. 1. National Council for Food Security 2. National Food Security Strategy which wants UAE to become number 1 food secure country in 2051 and 3. A massive ‘Ag-Tech accelerator program with over 50 stakeholders and 10 new Agtech initiatives. Emirates National Food Security Strategy 2051 with an ambitious target to reach within the top 10 by 2021

What is the role of Emirates Food Security Council? One-year-old Emirates Food Security Council, chaired by UAE Federal Minister of Food Security & Climate Change HE Mariam Bint Mohammed Almheiri, is an exemplary initiative of inclusive leadership. This council is made up of members from Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Climate Change and the Environment, Ministry of Energy and Industry, Ministry of Health and Prevention, Ministry of Education, National Emergency and Crisis, Disasters Management Authority and delegates from the local government of each of the seven emirates of the UAE and public & private sector food security advisory committees. An important mandate of this high powered council is set the investment agenda for the food sector, both in the UAE and abroad. What are the synergies between UAE and India? The relationship between the UAE and India is one of the success stories of undeniable geopolitical importance.

Although the UAE's commercial relationship with India goes back thousands of years, it has, from five years ago, transformed itself from a traditional trade relationship into a comprehensive strategic partnership. India is the UAE’s second-largest trade partner with annual trade between India and the UAE crossing $ 59 billion with Indian exports worth $33.3 billion to the UAE and $26 billion worth of UAE’s exports to India. The new goal set by both sides is to boost trade by 60 per cent by 2020 making India - UAE as the largest trade partners. Trade between the UAE and India could be valued at around $100 billion in the next five years. With the food import in the UAE set to reach $400 billion in the coming decade, the UAE government is cognizant of the tangible and practical steps to ensure that any crisis does not lead to any scarcity in food supplies. India as one of the largest exporters of food items is well poised to help UAE meet its food security agenda and attract FDI. Returning the favour UAE significantly contributes to the Indian energy security as India’s sixth-largest supplier of crude oil. Looking ahead, relations between the two countries are expected to become more robust due to the strategic needs of both governments and their commitment to maintaining strong relations. n

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

Courtesy: www.globoilindia.com

August 2020

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F&V sector

Convective Hot Air Drying of Vegetables & Fruits Process Optimization

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dr. Smita Lele, Director, ICT Jalna

ll natural agriculture products specially fruits & vegetables contain nearly 90% or more moisture. This moisture content is responsible for spoilage of Fruits & Vegetables. Food dehydration technology helps to reduce this moisture level to 1-5%. Food dehydration is nearly complete removal of water from foods under controlled conditions that cause minimum or ideally no other changes in the food. Thus, dehydration or drying becomes one of the simplest, easy & cheap methods of preservation of food. Examples are dried potato chips, dried milk and

August 2020

eggs, dried peas, chilies, instant coffee and orange juice crystals. Since India is tropical country many sundried products are preserved and subsequently used in meal. Examples of sundried products are Papad, Kurdaya & Sandge. In places like Rajasthan, drying vegetables like Gawar, Okara & its use in off season is very common. Although sun drying is cheap, it is a seasonal process further there is no sun available at night. Alternate sources such as electrical drying, LPG, microwave, etc has to be done in drying plant. Tray, tunnel, cabinet, fluidized & spray drying are some of the common designs

takes place in the form of convection, conduction & radiation. The best choice of dehydration technology depends on the capacity of the dryer, state of the food (solid or liquid or pieces), raw material cost, energy cost etc. Another interesting thing is generally at the beginning of drying, the rate of water loss is constant and the food surface is always moist and at wet bulb temperature although the convective medium (hot air) may be at much higher temperature. As water from food reduces, the process becomes mass transfer controlled and then dry in dehydration technology. patches may appear on the The best dehydration food surface although there process is freeze drying is lot of moisture trapped (Lyophilization). Sources of in the bulk of food. At such energy are solar, electricity, point maintain sufficient infrared & microwave for rate of drying, controlling removal of the moisture. humidity of surrounding air, Transfer of energy as heat retaining nutrition & vitamins and colour of food are process challenges. There is significant reduction in mass after dehydration of any fruit or vegetable because of the removal of water so we may get just 10-15% as our final product. The simplest Fig. 1: Schematic Convective Drying

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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F&V sector way to compare & assess any drying process or dehydrated product is the Rehydration Ratio. If the weight of sample is A & weight of dehydrated sample is B then the Dehydration Ratio (DR) can be written as: DR = A/B If the weight of rehydrated sample is C & dry powder weight sample B then the Rehydration Ratio (RR) can be written as: RR = C/B Under ideal conditions if C = A then the dried product is as good as fresh. But except for freeze drying, this is never achieved. As a result there is always some loss of texture, taste, colour and yield in dehydrated products. When it is rehydrated that is putting in hot or normal water, in significant time it has to absorb water & become like its original product. This property that is dehydration ratio & rehydration ratio in combination can be the simplest way to assess it. For example when 100 g sample becomes 10 g on drying so dehydration ratio is 10. 10 g of that dehydrated powder when put in water, it will again absorb 90 g of water & becomes 100 g so the rehydration ratio is also 10. Under ideal situation both these ratios should be equal which will never happen. In practice dehydration ratio is always more than rehydration ratio and RR is always less because on rehydration sample never absorb same water, it generally absorb less. We use this simple technique many times to assess the

overall efficacy of the process condition or the dehydration technology. Another parameter of assessment of dried product is colour that could be measured using Hunter values expressed as L, a, b scale measures. Colour in units of approximate visual uniformity throughout the solids. L measures lightness and varies from 100 for perfect white to zero for black; a measures redness when positive and greenness when negative; and b measures yellowness when positive and blueness when negative. The total colour difference (∆E) was defined using the Minolta equation as follows: ∆E = √ (L-L0)2 + (a-a0)2 + (b-b0)2

other hand are common to large volume product industries. Tray drying benefits over spray drying: l No loss in colour, flavour & vitamins. l No Malto-dextrin or other starch additive - spray dried powder may have 30 to 50% maltodextrin. l No lump formation while mixing, blending, rehydration. l Easy dehydration of stickier, viscous food containing lot of sugar In order to use drying techniques as a commercially sustainable technology & business model there are many challenges. To name some - Retention of nutrition, vitamins, retention of colour,

Fig. 2: Schematic of laboratory hot air Tray dryer 1: Air inlet; 2: Air exhaust; 3: Heaters; 4: Blowers; 5: Drying chamber fitted with trays; 6: Trays; 7: Exhaust air recycle passage

Convective dryers are very common in industrial food drying. Firstly, water evaporates from the surface of food material, and the subsequent moisture removal from the inner regions of raw material is driven by a moisture concentration gradient. Tray dryers are one type of batch dryer which commonly used in the small & pilot scale industries. Continuous dryers, on the

Good texture on rehydration etc. Customer does not understand material balance is commercial challenge. When 20 kg vegetable dehydrated in the Tray Dryer with minimum heating to retain vitamins, only 1 kg vegetable flex/ powder is obtained. When we consume 5 g (half tea-spoon) of this vegetable powder, it is equal to 100 g fresh vegetable (1 Katori full). Unfortunately, the consumers do not

understand this material balance and hence perceives that the dehydrated fruits and vegetables are too expensive. Raising finance is one of the important challenges as bank doesn’t give loan to the farmers. Marketing of dehydrated product - is yet another challenge. Consumption of fuel or energy is the main cost factor so development of energy saving measures has become necessary. Process optimization is one of the important way be which we can conserve energy & also quality of product. Case Study 1: Dehydration of Beetroot While Dehydration of beet roots the main challenge is retention of red colour. It contains betalain which is thermally stable but not over sensitive. Sometimes pH dependent as all the colours is pH dependent. Sometimes it becomes brown. We want it as like that of freeze drying. Initially, when moisture content is high the rate of drying is fast and later the rate of drying is reduced. Starchy product may have due to case hardening problem which may stop drying process in spite of presence of internal moisture due to polymeric layer at the surface of potato or carrot dice. In constant drying rate period, the sample is saturated with moisture evaporation and the temperature of sample cannot rise. But when moisture decreases and all the surface moisture is evaporated, heat transferred to the sample is used for moisture evaporation as well as increasing the temperature of the sample. But as heat capacity of the sample is very high compared

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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F&V sector

Drying Temperature Time

Quality of the dried sample (colour values and rehydration ratio)

120 C

2 h

Decreases

500C

6 h

Sequential temperature 4 h gradient (1200C to 500C)

Maximum colour retention & rehydration ratio Lower batch times (indirect benefits of reduced energy consumption and higher throughput) and maximum colour retention

Table 1: Quality assessment of dried sample with different drying temperature

total colour difference. Whereas all three parameters like temperature, degree of recirculation & sample thickness affects on the rehydration ratio.

to air, sample temperature never reaches very close to air temperature. Because of this, during the temperature gradient, the temperature of sample never exceeds 400C. Therefore, starting with 1200C of the temperature and sequentially lowering it to 500C successfully lower the batch time resulting in good colour retention. During constant rate drying period, even at high drying temperatures, temperature of sample hardly goes above 400C as explained earlier. However, in the falling rate drying period the temperature of the sample increases to about 720C for drying temperature of 1200C and remains at about 400C at a lower drying temperature of 500C; this explains the higher food pigment degradation at higher temperatures. The rehydration ratio decreases as the drying temperature increase. It may be due to porous structure of the sample being slightly better at 500C, where drying rate is lower than that of

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the sample dried at 1200C. Lower drying temperatures require much longer drying temperatures require much longer time (6 h for 500C) than drying at high temperatures (2 h for 1200C). But sequential temperature gradient decreases drying time to 4 h; with final colour values and rehydration ratio same as that of 500C ultimately conserve energy. Case Study 2: Dehydration of Arvi Post harvest losses in Arvi are more that is 90% in 6 month. Producing flour from Arvi for its storage & to reduce its losses is important aspect. It is starch robust but case hardening was the challenge for its dehydration. Fresh arvi dehydrated with different parameters like temperature, recirculation ratio & slice thickness with convective hot air tray drying. Here, study showed the temperature and sample thickness affects significantly on the average drying rate, final moisture content and

Case Study 3: Dehydration of Passion Fruit Passion fruit is rich source of vitamin C & antioxidant. It is very sensitive so challenge was retention of its flavour during its dehydration. Freezing is common method for its preservation but it is very expensive. Other methods like vacuum drying cause high losses of ascorbic acid, carotenoid & its flavour. Spray drying can also used but use of Matodextrin as a carrier & high temperature causes loss of colour & flavour. To overcome the problems associated with other drying methods, foam mat drying can be used. In this method, thin pulp is converted into stable foam by whipping after the addition of edible foaming agent. It increases surface area, and subsequently higher drying rates which yield dried powder of acceptable

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quality in reduced time span of drying process. It has been found that use of foaming agent helps in fast removal of inner bound moisture to the surface by capillary action, resulting in extremely porous drying mass which is more amenable to drying to its inner most layers (higher drying rate at lower temperature). This helped in faster drying of Passion fruit by continuous movement of moisture from inner core to the surface of foam and hence showed decrease in the time required for drying. The amount of colour variation is more in samples dried at higher temperature (70-800C) than at lower the temperature (50-600C) mainly due to degradation of heat sensitive colouring compounds in the sample. As drying temperature increases, total colour difference and rehydration ratio decreases, whereas non-enzymatic browning index, total phenolic content, and total antioxidant activity increases that attributes to inhibition of oxidative enzymes and biochemical changes. Reduction in the lightness (L) and yellowness (b) of the samples, rehydration ratio are directly correlated with increase in drying temperature. Rehydration ratio

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F&V sector

Per 100 gm JUST SIP Brand 1 - Brand 2 - PALAK VEG SOUP MIX VEG

Brand 3 - Chinese Style MIX VEG

Comments wrt Justsip Drinking Vegetable Premix Comparable

Energy (Kcal)

319.62

360

318

14.4

Protein (gm)

12.29

0.3

Highest

Carbohydrate (gm)

64.57

56.3

3.3

Comparable

Fat (gm)

1.413

8.2

6.3

Low

Saturated fat (gm)

0.41

3.8

3.1

NIL

0.8

0.1

NIL

Trans fat

0.001

NIL

Vitamin A (IU)

Cholesterol (mg)

2111.4

Traces

63.6

V. V. High

Vitamin C (mg)

12.71

Traces

0.7

High

Calcium (mg)

54.51

80.3

High

Iron (mg)

10.25

High

Sodium (mg)

4250

5370

High (natural)

Total Dietary Fibre

13.11

V. High

Table 2: Just sip Drinking vegetable premix, comparison with market brands

decreases as drying temperature increases. This may be due to porous structure of the sample being slightly better at 600C, where drying rate is lower than that of sample dried at 800C. Process optimization of more sustainable and efficient industrial dehydration technologies in the food sector can help in the achievement of short/ medium-term energy reduction goals. Sequential reduction in temperature reduces batch which indirectly reduces, energy consumption with maintaining quality of product. In the Foam MatTray Drying the sample becomes porous & extremely amenable to drying to its innermost layer. It reduces batch time & lowers the

drying temperature, which ultimately conserve energy. Success Story of Start-up mentoring and nurturing: Rajeev Gandhi Science and Technology Commission (RGSTC), Maharashtra State Government supported a project for developing nutritious products from dehydrated vegetables and demo plant was set up with 100 kg batch of vegetables in an electrical tray dryer. Alternate energy sources such as LPG, solar indirect drying were also tried. The products developed are not just soup premix but it is called drinking vegetables. Five different vegetables of 5 different colours have been used in the premixes. Trade mark Justsip is registered.

Now it has resulted into a small scale start up Trilok Food India, Satara. Some of the USPs are: l No preservatives, no chemicals, no MSG l Products having shelf life 12 to 18 months @ Rs. 90120 for 300 g l Processing vegetables from 200 acres of farmland l 100% natural, nutritionally rich products with a homely appeal l Products rich in protein, fibre, minerals & vitamins l GREEN Technology with zero waste and zero pollution Some products such as Justsip brand raw doodhi powder with spices are very popular in Pune and Satara market. Products are also available

on Amazon. Currently the company makes few tonnes per month and has signed positive agreements with over 200 farmers for supply of doodhi, palak, carrot, chilies etc. The farmers are offered assured price in spite of market drop in price. But if for some period, the farmer is likely to get more price than the contract value, then he has no obligation to supply the raw vegetables to Trilok and he is free to sell it in open market and make some more money. To the best of knowledge, no one in the country has signed such positive unidirectional agreement with farmers taking into account their welfare!!! n E-mail: dr.smita.lele@gmail.com

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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ingredients

Antifreeze Proteins (AFP)

A Promising Ingredient in Food Applications — S. G. Dharini Sinehaa, R Chandrakala

Antifreeze proteins are novel protein substance which enables the various organism to survive in subzero environments. AFP has remarkable ability to depress the freezing point of water in a non-colligative way without altering its melting point and thus exhibits thermal hysteresis. Application of Antifreeze proteins as food preservative elevates the quality of frozen foods during freezing storage, transport, and thawing. Despite their high cost and requirement of expensive biotechnological techniques for commercial production, these proteins act as a potential ingredient with high activity even in low quantities.

ntifreeze Proteins (AFP) with an ice interacting activity that is found among a wide range of Psychrophilic organisms like fishes, plants, insects, bacteria, fungi, etc. AFP plays a vital role in supporting these organisms survive subzero temperatures. These proteins are responsible for inhibition of ice growth and ice re-crystallization by depressing the freezing point of the body. Therefore, its name is called to be Antifreeze proteins. It was first identified by DeVries in 1969 in the blood of fish living in areas where the sea froze. Several pioneering methods like Micro fluidic Cold-Finger Device with fluorescence microscopic technique were developed to investigate the mechanism of Antifreeze proteins. The properties of AFP are advantageous in the areas of biotechnology, cryopreservation and notably in food technology where the introduction of AFP enhances both the quality and nutritive value of food kept under cold storage conditions. CLASSICATION OF ANTI FREEZE PROTEINS Fish AFP’s: The fish

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AFGP and AFP make up 3.4% of the blood of many Antarctic fishes. AFP from fish is categorized as shown in Figure 1.

Antifreeze proteins are majorly classified into two groups: a) Antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGP) b) Antifreeze proteins (non-glycosylated) (AFP), also known as thermal hysteresis proteins or ice structuring proteins.

acetyl-D-galactosamine linked as glycoside to the hydroxyl oxygen of the Thr residues. Antifreeze proteins predominantly control the size, shape, and re-cystallization of ice. The

In terms of amino acid sequence, AFGP consists of a repetitive conserved sequence of (Ala-Ala-Thr) n, and the disaccharide β-D-galactosyl-(1fi3)-a-N-

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Insect AFP’s Some of the insects like common yellow mealworm beetle (Tenebrio molitor, TmAFP), pyrochroid beetle (Dendroides Canadensis, DcATP), and spruce budworm (SbwAFP) are known to produce the most regularly structured proteins. AFP from insects is 10-100 times more active than AFP from fish due to which they are able to survive in much colder environment. Plant AFP’s They are found in a freeze-resistant plant in colder regions, for eg: Winter Rye, Carrot, etc. They have weaker thermal hysteresis activity

Fig. 1: Classification of AFP’s (Harding et al., 2003)

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Ingredients in AFPs; however, they have strong ice recrystallization inhibition activity. MECHANISM OF ACTION OF AFP’s The extremely diverse AFP are isolated and characterized from different sources including fish, insects, plants, and microorganisms which are different in their structure, amino acid sequences, tertiary structure, etc. Each AFP is shaped in such a way that a significant proportion of its surface that is relatively flat can dock to ice in which the docking interaction is particular for that specific ice-binding surface. There are several factors responsible for the binding which includes surface-surface complementarity in which the contributions of hydrogen bonding is secondary to the van der Waals interactions. In addition, the ice-binding surface is hydrophobic which prevents it from getting solvated with ice. However, their working mechanism is not well understood. APPLICATIONS IN FOOD INDUSTRY Antifreeze protein is intrinsically found in many foods consumed as part of the human diet. They are used to improve the quality of frozen foods by inhibiting recrystallization and maintain the smooth texture. AFP’s can also inhibit recrystallization during freezing, storage, transport, and thawing and in turn, retains the food texture by reducing cellular damage and minimizes the loss of nutrients by reducing drip. Since AFP’s acts extacellularly, they can be introduced in foods by direct mechanical methods like mixing and soaking.

Proteins are responsible for inhibition of ice growth and ice re-crystallization by depressing the freezing point of the body. Therefore, its name is called to be Antifreeze proteins

used for fermentation of milk to produce and store frozen yogurt.

However various studies developed gene transfer methods to introduce AFP’s into organisms at DNA level which may improve the texture and quality of frozen foods. ROLE IN ICE CREAM Ice cream industry suffers from a major problem of recrystallization caused by temperature fluctuations during storage destroying their texture and organoleptic property. This could be overcome by usage of AFP’s as recrystallization inhibitor of ice in ice cream resulting in a smoother texture with reformed tolerance to temperature fluctuations. AFP’s are considered as natural ice growth inhibitors in frozen dairy products. Except for gelatin, all the stabilizers were effective in retarding recrystallization in presence of ice-binding proteins which are evolved due to molecular interaction between the polysaccharides and proteins. The addition of ice-binding proteins to the ice cream aggregates the ice crystals into threedimensional network resulted in remarkably harder, highly brittle ice cream, enhanced shape, preserving capability, longer consumption time, etc. This also led to novel frozen desserts which are preferably harder and crystalline. The AFP expressing microorganism like Lactic acid bacteria are

ROLE IN FROZEN DOUGH The quality of frozen bread dough is deteriorated during storage due to decrease in gluten cross-linking caused by ice recrystallization which lowers the gassing rate and dough strength. Treatment of frozen and frozen sweet dough with a Heterologous expression of type I antifreeze peptide GS-5 in baker’s yeast strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae increases its freeze tolerance, gassing rate, and gas production. The application of carrot AFP to frozen dough retards the ice crystal growth, increases the retention capacity of dough and decreases the mortality of the yeast. Recombinant type I antifreeze protein (AFP), a food grade microorganism which is produced and secreted by Lactococcus lactic when introduced into frozen dough supports excellent fermentation capacity than untreated dough with same consumer acceptance. ROLE IN FROZEN MEAT Freezing and thawing of meat cause heavy damage due to the formation of large ice crystals intracellularly which bursts cell and leads to nutrition losses. Introduction of AFP’s in chilled meat causes no effect. However, AFP’s reduced the size of ice crystals and nutrition

loss in frozen meat. These effects depend upon the concentration of AFP used and period of soaking but are independent of the sources. Injection of AFGP into muscle tissue 1 to 24 hours before slaughtering reduces the ice crystal size and drip loss. Frozen meat treated with rAFG significantly reduces protein loss, drip loss and improves the juiciness of the meat. FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR USE OF AFP The isolation and purification processes of AFGP are time-consuming and expensive which makes it crucial for bulk production and commercial applications. In addition, the high cost of the AFP limits their capable use in foods. The removal of the lipolytic and proteolytic enzyme from the raw extract by heat treatment eventualize in the loss of AFP’s secondary structure. Therefore, the heat stability of these proteins is crucial. Despite of all the challenges, antifreeze proteins (AFP’s) are the best novel ingredient for its promising applications and also for being more effective ingredient even in low amounts that in turn makes it cost-efficient. However, if there would be an increase in commercial production of isolated antifreeze proteins then its availability for the application may widen in the food industry. n Authors: S. G. Dharini Sinehaa, 2 R Chandrakala 1 2 B. Tech, PhD Research Scholar, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kudli, Sonipat, Haryana 1

E-mail: sinehaadharini@gmail.com, rchandrakala3892@gmail.com

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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Technology

Bühler Gives Leading IQF Processor to Global Fruit And Vegetable Markets As a knock-on effect of the worldwide Covid-19 lockdown, consumer demand for shelf-stable foods including frozen fruit and vegetables has soared. One company that has managed to successfully ride the wave of increased product demand is leading European frozen food producer: Fine Food.

Fine Food birds eye view

he family-owned company based in Turkey has not ceased production or indeed any of its global export operations for a single day so far. The company attributes this resilience to the technological edge that it retains over its competitors, “We are the only business with Bühler’s SORTEX® FA series machines in Turkey and we believe that puts us in a very strong position in the market,” says Mehmet Berk Goztepe, Export Sales Representative at Fine Food. Established in 1994, Fine Food has over 200 employees working across three factories in the Marmara region of Turkey; a new facility dedicated exclusively to the production of

August 2020

frozen French fries is currently under construction in the Emirdağ district. The company has a portfolio of approximately 20 Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) fruit and vegetable products, 12 of which are vegetables that are either grown or harvested on Fine Food’s own lands, or by contract farmers around the Yenişehir and Bursa provinces. A total of 70-80 million kilograms of sweetcorn, green beans, peas, spinach, strawberries and cherries are processed by the company every year. Traditional yet innovative Fine Food upholds a strong familyfocused ethos with members of the

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

Goztepe family educated and exposed to all aspects of the business from a young age. Yet while the company may be traditional in its values, it is ahead of the curve when it comes to flexibility with urgent orders able to be processed in just one day. Such flexibility is made possible by Fine Food's use of the latest technologies. Goztepe states, “With 11 sorters in total, our sorter infrastructure is far more advanced than others, something that not many Turkish processors can say.” One of the major contributors to Fine Food’s advanced sorting infrastructure is its trusted manufacturing partner Bühler who supplies the majority of the sorters for the company’s IQF products.

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Technology

Frozen Berries in ice tray

A mutual alliance The company began its relationship with Bühler by adding SORTEX E1D optical sorting machines to its portfolio. With the E1D machines, Fine Food is able to take advantage of high-resolution cameras and proprietary detection technologies to ensure maximum food safety. The E1D’s double-sided detection of colour, shape and size, enables quick and easy removal of subtle to gross colour defects, insect damage, blemishes and Foreign Materials (FM) such as glass, plastic and stones that the company was previously struggling to consistently remove. Strengthening the relationship Following the exceptional performance and stability of the E1D machines, Fine Food decided to invest in Bühler’s latest technology to meet its growing IQF product capacity needs. With the SORTEX FA2 machine’s FDA approved adjustable 1200 mm chute, Fine Food is now able to process double the amount of product than before: 14 tonnes per hour. Goztepe notes, “In addition to the higher capacity with the FA2, I also like the improvement of the LED lighting functionality. "The lights stay bright throughout their entire lifecycle meaning there is no worry about having to frequently replace them.” Furthermore, the easy adaptability of the machines to suit Fine Food’s various IQF commodities allows for greater flexibility and control in the company’s day-to-day processing. Exports and hygiene The FA2 machines are specially

Frozen Berries

designed to meet stringent Western Europe and USA product safety requirements. Thus with 70% of their products exported to international markets including Europe, North America, the Balkans, the Middle East and East Asia, Fine Food trusts that its buyers’ needs will be satisfied and that a superior quality and consistent final product will always be delivered. Cleaning the machines is easy thanks to the open and accessible design of the stainless steel frame and sloped surfaces. With virtually no product build-up, there is a very low risk of contamination. This, Goztepe says, “keeps us feeling confident that we're always adhering to the toughest hygiene and food safety standards.” A SORTEX® PolarVision™ edge The FA2 machines are also equipped with Bühler’s renowned SORTEX PolarVision detection system which combines two pioneering technologies for unmatched FM removal: PolarCam™ technology and high definition InGaAsHD cameras. Goztepe says, “The SORTEX PolarVision technology came as a huge advantage for us for FM removal, particularly in the case of snails. “It has also proved very useful in detecting any Extraneous Vegetable Matter (EVM) and colour differences. We now eagerly await the upcoming wet season this year as that is when we expect to find the most EVM in peas, so we’ll be able to see the full strength of the SORTEX PolarVision technology!”

SORTEX F

for Bühler’s local Turkish sales agent Atomika states, “One of the main reasons Fine Food opted for the FA2 was to be able to detect and remove any snails, black plastics and FM, for this reason our SORTEX PolarVision technology really appealed to them. “They needed to ensure the best quality within their national and export markets.” Goztepe adds, “With Atomika everything runs quickly and smoothly, we never have any issues. Personally and ethically we really enjoy working with them.” He goes on to add that Fine Food chose to install its “very easy and straightforward to use” SORTEX E1D and FA2 machines after the freezing tunnel. The optical sorters were integrated by Bühler’s Service Engineers and now Goztepe is able to say with pride that, “99% of the time our machines only need to sort a batch once.” With the E1D and FA2 machines, the company rests assured that its final products will meet the highest international quality standards without the need for multiple sorts, reducing energy consumption and saving time. The future is bright Goztepe concludes by mentioning that if the company has scope for future investment it will be returning to Bühler. “We only use the world’s best brands. The Fine Food philosophy is that if we are happy with a particular manufacturer we will preserve that relationship and that is definitely true of our partnership with Bühler.” n

Customer service Gurhan Nergizoglu, Sales Manager AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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Technology

Introduces CHOOZIT® BC 02 to Help Pizza Cheese Makers Expand Their Business After last year’s successful launch of CHOOZIT® BC 01, DuPont now extends its offer with CHOOZIT® BC 02 – a new culture to help pizza cheese makers ensure quality and consistency

uPont Nutrition & Biosciences (DuPont) announced the launch of CHOOZIT® BC 02, a new phage alternative for cheese makers looking to meet the increasing global demand for pizza cheese and meet consumers’ preference in terms of pizza cheese browning. Part of the DuPont™ Danisco® portfolio of ingredients, the new culture joins CHOOZIT® BC 01 as a proprietary formulation designed to assist cheese makers to create added value and flexibility for their food service customers: enabling them to achieve a consistent quality pizza cheese in a wide range of ovens around the world, day after day. The CHOOZIT® BC cultures offer key advantages, including robust processing conditions, browning control, better flexibility for pizza baking in oven conveyors, consistent cheese quality with no change in texture before shredding and a lower risk of spoilage –all in a natural, label friendly solution. The cultures are clean

August 2020

label solutions to control browning, unlike many alternatives on the market that are formulated with additives. CHOOZIT® BC helps pizza cheese makers meet consumer preferences for natural products, while using less water in production, a lower volume of whey and less energy for whey drying. Pizza cheese makers had long struggled to achieve consumers’ preferred cheese browning colour using natural solutions, until last year’s successful roll-out of CHOOZIT® BC 01 in the European market. To date, CHOOZIT® BC01 is in commercial use by a

significant number of leading pizza cheese producers and in approval phases in key countries around the broader European region. These countries represent roughly 77% of the total pizza cheese produced in Europe. “As demand rises across the global pizza industry, pizza cheese makers have looked for solutions to make substantial improvement on the quality and consistency of their product,” said Annie Mornet, global product manager, Cheese Cultures at DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences. “We introduced CHOOZIT® BC 01 last year and found that customers are

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

very pleased with its unique performance. Pizza cheese makers have confirmed that CHOOZIT® BC 01 gives much better browning control for the same cheese quality, and for some particular pizza cheese manufacturing processes manufacturers have been able to use 25% less water in the pizza cheese process. “CHOOZIT® BC 02 takes it a step further,” she continued, “with CHOOZIT® BC 02 we present an even stronger offering to cheese producers who need to produce in industrial volumes. The cultures have been designed to provide the right acidification kinetics and proteolytic features to manage the yield and mineralization of the cheese. The metabolism of the different species allows for a better consumption of the sugars, especially galactose, throughout the process. Moreover, CHOOZIT® BC 01 and 02 are a biodiverse and alternative formulation leading to a higher robustness and limiting the phage issues.” n

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CCD probe reveals Rs 3,500 crore fund diversion gives clean chit to I-T department

n investigation into the circumstances that led to the alleged suicide of VG Siddhartha, the owner of the Coffee Day group, has revealed that Rs 3,535 crore siphoned off from the company by the entrepreneur's personal firms. The probe gave a clean chit to the tax department that was being alleged to have harassed Siddhartha. The investigation, led by the former deputy inspector general of CBI, Ashok Kumar Malhotra, stated that Siddhartha's "Mysore Amalgamated Coffee Estates Limited (MACEL) owes a sum of Rs 3,535 crore to the subsidiaries of Coffee Day Enterprise Ltd" (CDEL). Out of this, "a sum of Rs.842 crore was due to these subsidiaries by MACEL as on March 31, 2019, as per the consolidated audited financial statements. Therefore, a sum of Rs 2,693 crore is the incremental outstanding that needs to be addressed," it said. "Steps are being taken by subsidiaries of CDEL for recovery of dues from MACEL," the company said in a regulatory filing that disclosed the findings of the investigation. The company board authorised its chairman to appoint an ex-judge of the Supreme Court or High Court to "suggest and oversee actions for recovery of the dues from MACEL", it said, adding personal assets/

shares of Siddhartha were hypothecated/pledged for business loans of the company and its subsidiaries. The Board of Directors of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) had on August 30, 2019 appointed Malhotra to investigate into the circumstances leading to the statements made in the letter of Siddhartha dated July 27, 2019 and to scrutinise the books of accounts of CDEL and its subsidiaries. CDEL consists of 49 subsidiaries. "MACEL, an entity on the personal business side of late V G Siddhartha had a continuing business relationship with subsidiary companies of CDEL. MACEL was paid advances by subsidiary companies of CDEL. The amounts were sent to MACEL through normal banking channels," it said. The investigation report said the significant portion of the fund taken out from CDEL "may have been probably spent to "buy-back" equity from PE investors, repay loans and to pay interest, apart from funding certain other private investments which are outside the scope of this investigation". It went on to state that no documentary evidence was provided "to draw an inference that there may have been any advertent or inadvertent harassment from the income tax department". It also gave a clean chit to the Income Tax Department over allegations of harassment

to late VGS. "We have not been provided any documentary evidence to draw interference that there may have been any adverting or inadvertent harassment from the Income Tax Department. "Nevertheless, a perusal of the financial records during the relevant period suggests a serious liquidity crunch which may have been arisen due to the attachment of the Mindtree shares by the IT Department,â&#x20AC;? the report synopsis said. However, the report also pointed out that given the communiques, mail exchanges and one to one discussions with the key management personnel and other officers of the company are not suggestive to draw any interference that the senior management and VGS' team was not aware about such transactions and were cognitive of the manner in which it happened. "We are inclined to believe that the statement contained in the note of the VGS dated July 27, that my team, auditors and the senior management are totally unaware of all my transactions," it said. In the purported letter VGS had said, "The law should hold me and only me accountable, as I have withheld the information from everybody, including my family". Siddhartha was confirmed dead on July 31, 2019 after his body was found in the

Netravati River in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, a day after he went missing. Meanwhile, VGS wife, Malavika Hegde, who is also Director in CDEL, assured her cooperation to the board and the concerned authorities for a corrective course of action. "I am fully aware of the requirements and responsibilities in this regard and will fully cooperate with the Board and the concerned Authorities for a corrective course of action," said Hegde in a letter to the team members. CDEL, which was facing debts of Rs 7,200 crore, is pairing its debts by disposing assets and now brought down it to Rs 3,200 crore and would bring it further down as it plans to sell more assets. "We have significantly brought down our debt level from Rs 7,200 crore at the start of last year to Rs 3,200 crore now. We think that we can bring that to a more manageable level with our plans to sell a few more of our investments shortly," she said. While talking about VGS, Hegde said, "He has left me a job to do, to settle every lender to the best of my ability, to grow the business and to enthuse and foster our employees. I am grateful that despite a deadly pandemic enforced lockdown, we have been able to sustain businesses and jobs in the last few months". n

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August 2020

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Pizza Hut, KFC recovering fast as people order online

uick service restaurants such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC have been able to recover better from the pandemic than dine-in restaurants because a sizeable part of their revenue is dependent on takeaways and online deliveries which have surged during and post the lockdown as people remain wary of venturing out. “We have been seeing very encouraging responses for our convenience platforms such as delivery, take-out, drive-thru and on-the-go delivery," said Smita Jatia, MD of Hardcastle Restaurants, which owns and operates McDonald’s restaurants in west and south India. Many of their drive-thru restaurants on highways as well as in the cities are doing very well and gradually coming back to pre-Covid level sales. "We

expect the pace of recovery to accelerate as normalcy begins to resume,” Jatia said. Per day per store McDelivery sales have bounced back to 70% of preCovid levels, while daily takeout sales from operational stores have surged 1.7 times compared to levels before the pandemic broke out, as per the company’s first quarter results. Merrill Pereyra, MD of Pizza Hut’s Indian subcontinent operations said takeaway sales are a lot higher than a year ago while delivery sales are higher than preCovid levels. The company does not expect dine-in will pick up in the next one year. Dine-ins are struggling also because of the order to shut down by 9 pm and inability to serve alcohol. With the night curfew ceasing from

August 1, owners still remain uncertain whether there will be much impact as alcohol continues to be forbidden. Delivery cannot replace dine-ins as it contributes just 10-12% of the topline for restaurants. Also, people are still apprehensive about buying from outside. Labour availability remains a problem. Jubilant Foodworks, which runs the Domino's Pizza chain,

said online sales contributed 90% to its delivery sales in the fourth quarter. “This crisis period has been almost a driver of lost consumers embracing online ordering,” said CEO Pratik Pota. Moksh Chopra, chief marketing officer of KFC India, said a good proportion of its sales continue to come from delivery, "with takeaway and dine-in seeing a steady increase.”

Gole Market. “One, they are delicious sweets, and two, they increase your immunity.” It’s only been a week since Aggarwal introduced the laddoos, but the reception has been tremendous. The sugary spheres use the ingredients used to make kaadha, an ayurvedic immunity boosting drink, and the Covid-wary are buying a lot of them,

more than 100 kg till date by Aggarwal’s reckoning. The honey-sweetened laddoos are infused with 10-15 herbs and spices, among them the familiar ashwagandha, tulsi, ginger and kalonji. Laxmi Nagar resident Arun Vij is a regular at Kaleva’s. “I came here to buy sweets for Raksha Bandhan and saw the boxes labelled ‘Caring

‘Immunity laddoos’ are selling like hot cakes

f there is anything positive to say about the novel coronavirus, it’s that it inspires creativity. The latest in a long list of doing old things in new ways has to do with the tradition of gorging on sweets for Raksha Bandhan. The golden laddoo can now be dispatched with an easy conscience because Covid-19 has nudged sweetmakers to opt for immunity-boosting ingredients. Instead of spoonfuls of chyawanprash, a laddoo will do, thank you. Kolkata, the sweet capital

August 2020

of India, set the trend with the ‘immunity sandesh’ and other delectables, but Delhi hasn’t taken long to catch up. And whether these concoctions are actually beneficial for health is an academic debate that makes no difference to sales. For now, shopkeepers are basking in the confidence that their innovations can make fighting the virus an act of pleasure. “Our Caring Laddoos have two benefits,” exclaimed Naman Aggarwal, owner of the iconic Kaleva Sweets in

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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News Round-up Laddoo’. What is Caring Laddoo, I wondered,” said Vij. “Seeing my bewilderment, a salesperson offered me one. I loved the flavour, but I was sold when he told me about the ingredients. I bought 3kg of them.” Bangla Sweet House in the vicinity calls it variant the ‘Immunity Laddoo’. Rohit Aggarwal, the shop owner, even came up with a tagline:

“Our new delicious recreation to fight the ongoing pandemic, based on the invaluable desi nuskhe”. For two months now, the confection has caught the attention of people through word of mouth, and also the shop’s pamphlets and endorsements on Facebook and Instagram. Recalling the genesis of the Covid-era sweet, Rohit Aggarwal said, “People called

us to say we should try making something that could help them. I gave the request some thought and came up with this concept of an immunity boosting sweet. After a week of experimentation, we finally got the proportions right. Our laddoo has black pepper, gond, saundh, shyama tulsi, desi ghee, ajwain and elaichi, to name a few ingredients.” Priced around Rs 680 for a

kilo, these anti-virus laddoos look no different from the regular ones, and buyers, like Satish Rai, have to taste them to sense the difference. But once hooked, people cannot see beyond them. That is why at Hira Sweets in Connaught Place; at least 5kg of its ‘Immunity Booster Laddoo’ has been selling every day since Teej on July 23.

desserts. There has been sharp spike in consumer preference for healthier options of cooked meals as platforms look to tap into growing demand among young Indians for eating right. “With Swiggy’s Health Hub, it’s simpler than ever for customers to make the switch and for health brands like us to meet new customers,” Jyotsna Pattabiraman, Founder &

CEO, Grow Fit, said. Other kitchen brands focussed on healthy eating including Eatfit, Truffles Hospitality, Healthie, Keto Garden, Nurtibites, Go Native, Fitchef, Health Nuts, Salad Company, NutriChef, and atleast 50 others across the top cities. Cloud Kitchen companies such as FreshMenu has branched out into a new healthy food brand called Green Cravings.

Swiggy launches healthy food discovery interface on its app

wiggy has launched a dedicated healthy food discovery interface on the app where select restaurants curate menus and share detailed nutritional information on macronutrients for dishes with customers. Swiggy has worked with nutritionists and top restaurants in the country to enable this selection to cater to health consciousness customers. The company has curated over 10,000 unique healthy dishes by more than 1,000 restaurants. Launched in Bangalore, Health Hub will expand to Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Delhi in the next few weeks. “There is a visible demand for healthy food choices by consumers and restaurants are seeking opportunities to

innovate and stay relevant to these market changes. With Health Hub, we want to boost healthy eating patterns across the country and dismiss commonly held beliefs that healthy food is bland, hard to find and expensive,” Vivek Sunder, COO, Swiggy, said. The past few months have altered the food consumption habits of Indians with a renewed focus on eating right, especially as they spend more time indoors. “With the launch of Health Hub, we expect this trend of ordering healthy dishes to grow and more than double over the next 6 months,” Sunder said. Consumers have the ability to choose from gluten-free, highprotein, low-carb, organic, vegan, and keto meals across soups, salads, wraps, and

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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News Round-up

Nestle India April-June net profit up 11% to Rs 486.60 crore

MCG major Nestle India Ltd reported a 11.14 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 486.60 crore for the quarter ended June 2020, helped by increase in sales. The company, which follows January-December financial year, had posted a profit of Rs 437.79 crore in the same quarter a year ago, Nestle India said in a BSE filing. Its net sales rose 1.96 per cent to Rs 3,041.45 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 2,982.83 crore in the corresponding period of last fiscal. Commenting on the results, Nestle India chairman and managing director Suresh Narayanan said, "The past three months have witnessed volatility, uncertainty and stresses that we had never imagined before nor experienced. "This led to disruptions across the value chain of the company that has impacted our results, though we have built back momentum strongly as we ended the quarter."

Nestle India's domestic sales rose 2.55 per cent to Rs 2,907.74 crore in April-June quarter as against Rs 2,835.37 crore a year ago. Exports declined 9.32 per cent to Rs 133.71 crore as against Rs 147.46 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Total expenses rose marginally to Rs 2,436.14 crore from Rs 2,414.35 crore. During April-June, Nestle India witnessed over two-fold jump in sales from e-commerce, while 'out of home' sector performance was subdued. "We delivered strong performance in the 'e-commerce' channel which grew by 122 per cent this quarter and now contributes 3.6 per cent to domestic sales," Narayanan said. "Demand in all 'Out of Home' consumption channels experienced a sharp decline due to the lockdown," he added. However, in the 'in home consumption' segment, Nestle's brands such as

EVERYDAY Dairy Whitener, Nestle a+ Milk and other milk based portfolio, NESCAFE Classic and NESCAFE Sunrise performed well this quarter, he said. "MAGGI also witnessed solid growth towards the end of the quarter after initial supply constraints," he said. The company has accelerated its "digital engagements across key parts of our portfolio, put out innovative campaigns to engage the consumers... while ensuring judicious application of marketing spends in line with the current business scenario," Narayanan said. Besides, the company was also helped by lower tax rates during the quarter. "Tax expense for both the

quarter ended 30 June 2020 has been computed at the rates introduced by the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Ordinance 2019, dated 20 September 2019. Net profit after tax and earnings per share has been positively impacted by the lower tax rates," the company said. During the first half (H1) of 2020, Nestle India's net profit rose 12.38 per cent to Rs 1,012.03 crore as against Rs900.53 crore in January-June period of previous year. Sales in H1 of 2020 rose 4.72 per cent to Rs 6,247.23 crore as compared with Rs 5,965.22 crore in 2019. Shares of Nestle India Ltd settled 1.41 per cent lower at Rs 17,098.95 on the BSE.

a final extension to the date of enforcement for display of 'Date of manufacturing' and 'Best before use' from August 1 to October 1, 2020," the FSSAI said. During this

period, sweets associations are advised to sensitise and build capacity of their members to implement the order from October 1, it added.

Deadline to display 'best before', mfg date for loose sweets extended till Oct 1: FSSAI

ood safety regulator FSSAI extended by two months till October 1 the deadline for traditional sweet makers to display the 'best before' and manufacturing date of non-packaged sweets. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had

August 2020

issued an order in this regard in February and later extended the deadline till August 1. "In view of disruption and lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic and representation received from sweets association and stakeholders, it has been decided to give

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

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News Round-up

ITC's business crosses Rs 10,000 cr sales milestone in FY20, Rs 600 cr short of Britannia

ndia’s third largest listed packaged food company ITC's business crossed the Rs.10,000 crore sales milestone in 2019-20, narrowing the lead of the second ranked Britannia to about Rs 600 crore. Nestle India is the leader in the segment. Retail sales of ITC's Aashirvaad brand atta crossed Rs 6,000 crore in sales last fiscal, growing by over 30%, as per latest disclosure in annual report. This makes the brand one of the largest in the food segment in India. ITC's food business grew by 7.3% with gross sales of Rs.10,377.73 crore in FY20, as per the annual report.

In contrast, biscuit maker Britannia Industries had clocked sales of Rs 10,986.68 crore last fiscal. In FY1819, the difference in sales between Britannia and ITC's food business was over Rs 810 crore. Nestle is India's largest listed food company with sales of Rs.12,368.9 crore last fiscal. ITC's chief executive for food business Hemant Malik said the growth across various food categories has been powered by a robust portfolio of world-class brands, a slew of first-to-market innovative offerings, a range of distinctive products customised to address consumers’ evolving needs, diverse regional tastes

and preferences, besides ramping up offerings in the wellness segment. He said Aashirvaad atta has fortified its market standing across geographies and has reached over 3.6 crore households. Aashirvaad has achieved its highest ever volume share of 39.2% within the branded atta segment in June this year as per IMRB data. ITC, which has ambitions to become India's largest FMCG Company, is betting heavily on the food business to achieve its goal and reduce dependence on the flagship cigarette business that has been under volume pressure

Parle Agro locks horns with Walmart India in the Bombay HC over its product Appy Fizz

n a rare incidence of a local company taking action against a multinational for alleged trademark violation, Parle Agro has moved the Bombay High Court against Walmart India for selling an apple drink with 'deceptively similar mark' as its Appy Fizz. In an interim order, the court has restrained Walmart from selling any product allegedly similar to the petitioner’s product until further order. The country’s largest homegrown beverage firm has alleged that the Indian unit of

the world’s largest retailer was manufacturing, marketing, selling and promoting an apple drink, 'Fizzy Apple', using identical font, style and colour scheme as those Parle Agro uses for Appy Fizz. “The mark, shape of the bottle, colour scheme, label, get up, layout and the entire trade dress of the defendants impugned product is identical to the plaintiff’s product.,” advocate Hiren Kamod, representing Parle Agro, told the court. "It is obvious that the defendants are trying to sail as

close to the wind as possible and have made all possible attempts to come as close as possible to Appy Fizz’." Bombay High Court Justice BP Collabawala granted an interim relief to Parle Agro on July 9. He will next hear the matter on August 20. Launched in 2005, Appy Fizz was the country’s first sparkling apple juice drink and dominates the segment with more than 90% market share. Bollywood star Salman Khan is the brand ambassador for the brand. “The defendants

due to recurrent increase in taxes. The food business last fiscal accounted for 80% of ITC's overall FMCG sales. The Sunfeast biscuit brand is ITC's second largest FMCG brand that clocked retail sales of Rs 4,000 crore and Bingo! Snacks Rs 2,700 crore last fiscal. The Classmate stationary brand touched Rs 1,400 crore and YiPPee instant noodles nearly Rs 1,300 crore. ITC is market leader in branded atta, bridges segment of snacks, cream biscuit, notebooks and the second largest in overall snacks and potato chips segment, instant noodles, deodorant and agarbatti. However, the company's stationary products business took a beating in January to March quarter due to Covid19 lockdown which impacted overall FMCG business performance last year.

are seeking to ride on the reputation and goodwill generated by the plaintiff in its ‘Appy Fizz’ product and the extensive promotion and advertisement of the same undertaken by the plaintiff and are seeking to make wrongful gains,” Kamod told the court. Abhishek Malhotra, managing partner of law firm TMT Law Practice, representing Walmart India, argued that the word ‘Fizzy’ is a common descriptive word and no one can claim a monopoly on the same. Parle Agro declined to comment since the matter is sub judice. Email queries to Walmart India remained unanswered. When contacted, Kamod and Malhotra declined to comment since the matter is sub judice.

AgriBusiness & Food Industry

August 2020

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Starbucks says business 'steadily recovering' as stores reopen â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Nivedita Balu and Hilary Russ

tarbucks Corp's business is "steadily recovering" worldwide as most of the coffee chain's stores have reopened with the easing of coronavirus-led restrictions. Shares of the Seattle-based company rose about 6.5% in extended trading after it said it would return to profitability in the current quarter on improving sales and margins. Comparable store sales fell 40% globally and 41% in the Americas for Starbucks' third quarter ended June 28. This was less than analysts' forecast for declines of 42.05% and 42.82% respectively, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Starbucks, like many restaurants and coffee chains, took a big hit from governmentimposed measures to curb the

pandemic, prompting it to rely more on delivery and drivethru services to make up for lost business. More people used the chain's drive-thru and delivery options to buy coffee and food, with mobile orders rising 6 percentage points from a year ago to make up 22% of total transactions in the quarter. Starbucks plans to deploy new handheld point-of-sale devices for employees to take orders in drive-thru lines to speed service. It will also roll out curbside pickup and a new plant-based protein box. "Our recovery strategy is working," said Chief Executive Kevin Johnson said during a call with investors. "We have future-proofed our business model and reinforced our

balance sheet to enable us to play offense." About 97% of global Starbucks-operated locations are now open. This includes 99% of outlets in China and 96% of stores in the United States, which started the quarter with less than half of locations open. For its full fiscal year, which ends in September, Starbucks expects global same-store sales to be 12-17% lower. Comparable sales in China should see a substantial recovery by December and U.S. sales expected are to

recover by March 2021. Ninety-day active U.S. members in the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program dropped 5% year over year to 16.3 million as customers used it less often because of temporary store closures. Excluding one-time items, the company lost 46 cents per share in the quarter, but that was better than analysts' expectations of a 59 cent pershare loss. Total net revenue slumped about 38% to $4.22 billion, but still beat the average analyst estimate of $4.07 billion.

National Franchise Leadership Alliance. Erlinger and Salebra also said that in cases where customers decline to wear masks, it will "put in place additional procedures to take care of them in a friendly,

expedited way." McDonald's said it will delay the re-opening of its dining rooms for another 30 days. It is also adding protective panels in the back and front of restaurants to help with social distancing.

McDonald's to require masks at all US restaurant locations

cDonald's says it will be requiring customers to wear face coverings when entering its U.S. restaurants as the number of new virus cases continue to surge in many states. The move, announced is in effect from Aug. 1. McDonald's Corp. Joins a parade of companies issuing mask mandates for its customers or so, including Walmart, Target, and Kohl's. Starbucks also recently issued

August 2020

a mask mandate for customers who visit its company-owned locations in the U.S. Chicago-based McDonald's said that 82% of its restaurants are in states or localities that require facial coverings for both employees and customers. But it said it is "important we protect the safety of all employees and customers," according to a joint statement from McDonald's USA President Joe Erlinger and Mark Salebra, chair of the

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Date of Publishing 24-25 Every Month Date of Posting 1-2 Every Month

Postal Regn. No. DL. (S) - 17/3028/2016-18 R.N.I. Regn. No. DELENG/2003/11672

AGRI BUSINESS & FOOD INDUSTRY

Articles inside

its app Nestle India April-June net profit up 11% to Rs 486.60 crore

McDonald's to require masks at all US restaurant locations

Editorial

Introduces Choozit® BC 02 to help Pizza Cheese Makers expand their business

Func tional Food Dairy Probiotics A Best Source of Functional Foods

Immunity laddoos’ are selling like hot cakes

Ingredients Antifreeze Proteins (Afp A Promising Ingredient in Food Applications

Swiggy launches healthy food discovery interface on

Ne ws Roundup CCD Probe Reveals Rs 3,500 Crore Fund Diversion Gives Clean Chit to I-T Department

Food Business