Shifting from infotech to meals tech, younger ‘Wayanadans’ make case for wholesome way of life

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Four Wayanad-based IT engineers by no means anticipated that their plan to create an agritech firm would alter the course of their lives. After working an IT enterprise in Kozhikode for 5 years, brothers Jithin Kanth, 35, and Nithin Kanth, 30; Mobin, 30; and Visakh, 29, determined to start out a non-IT firm known as Wayanad Organic Research in 2019. The purpose is to offer wholesome processed meals merchandise comprised of varied fruits beneath the model ‘Wayanadans’.

The startup’s standout product is its vacuum-fried fruit chips. In distinction to different meals processing firms, this startup fries the meals at low temperatures (as much as 60 levels Celsius) by inserting the cut-up fruit items into the vacuum machine. The 4 declare that this course of makes the items each tasty and wholesome. The startup additional asserted that it the primary meals processing enterprise within the state to make use of vacuum frying to supply snacks.

“The concept of vacuum frying is what motivated us to launch the business. We saw a lot of individuals were consuming dangerous fried chips made with oil. This could cause serious diseases. Hence, we made the decision to build a company that makes food which is good for everyone,” Jithin stated.

“We established the company here and imported the frying machine from abroad. Getting food ingredients was the next difficult task. In order to discover the right merchants, we travelled from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod and even outside the state,” he added.

The firm manufactures a wide range of vacuum-fried merchandise, together with jackfruit chips, okra chips, beetroot chips, carrot chips and mango chips. In addition, it sells about 30 different gadgets, reminiscent of tea powder, espresso powder, arrowroot powder and honey. Vacuum frying retains the dietary worth of meals, because the low frying temperatures cut back the degradation of nutritional vitamins, minerals and different vitamins current within the meals. This technique may enhance the shelf lifetime of fried meals, because it reduces the quantity of moisture content material within the product, which may lower the expansion of micro organism and mildew.

At current, the corporate is exporting their merchandise fairly than specializing in the native market. However, the merchandise can be found on on-line e-commerce net portals like Amazon and Flipkart. Their merchandise are exported to 10 international locations, together with Australia, Malaysia and Gulf international locations. “The pandemic drastically affected our business as we solely depended on the export market. But we have recovered from the losses, and the business is doing well with an annual turnover of over Rs 1 crore,” Jithin stated.

The value of the chips is Rs 60 for 50g because of the high quality packaging and lengthy shelf life. At current, 50 ladies workers are working within the manufacturing unit. The founders stated that they might quickly make the merchandise accessible on the native market as nicely. In addition to producing and promoting these merchandise, the startup can be engaged in analysis and improvement to enhance the vacuum-frying course of and discover new purposes for this know-how.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Four Wayanad-based IT engineers by no means anticipated that their plan to create an agritech firm would alter the course of their lives. After working an IT enterprise in Kozhikode for 5 years, brothers Jithin Kanth, 35, and Nithin Kanth, 30; Mobin, 30; and Visakh, 29, determined to start out a non-IT firm known as Wayanad Organic Research in 2019. The purpose is to offer wholesome processed meals merchandise comprised of varied fruits beneath the model ‘Wayanadans’.

The startup’s standout product is its vacuum-fried fruit chips. In distinction to different meals processing firms, this startup fries the meals at low temperatures (as much as 60 levels Celsius) by inserting the cut-up fruit items into the vacuum machine. The 4 declare that this course of makes the items each tasty and wholesome. The startup additional asserted that it the primary meals processing enterprise within the state to make use of vacuum frying to supply snacks.

“The concept of vacuum frying is what motivated us to launch the business. We saw a lot of individuals were consuming dangerous fried chips made with oil. This could cause serious diseases. Hence, we made the decision to build a company that makes food which is good for everyone,” Jithin stated.googletag.cmd.push(perform() googletag.show(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); );

“We established the company here and imported the frying machine from abroad. Getting food ingredients was the next difficult task. In order to discover the right merchants, we travelled from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod and even outside the state,” he added.

The firm manufactures a wide range of vacuum-fried merchandise, together with jackfruit chips, okra chips, beetroot chips, carrot chips and mango chips. In addition, it sells about 30 different gadgets, reminiscent of tea powder, espresso powder, arrowroot powder and honey. Vacuum frying retains the dietary worth of meals, because the low frying temperatures cut back the degradation of nutritional vitamins, minerals and different vitamins current within the meals. This technique may enhance the shelf lifetime of fried meals, because it reduces the quantity of moisture content material within the product, which may lower the expansion of micro organism and mildew.

At current, the corporate is exporting their merchandise fairly than specializing in the native market. However, the merchandise can be found on on-line e-commerce net portals like Amazon and Flipkart. Their merchandise are exported to 10 international locations, together with Australia, Malaysia and Gulf international locations. “The pandemic drastically affected our business as we solely depended on the export market. But we have recovered from the losses, and the business is doing well with an annual turnover of over Rs 1 crore,” Jithin stated.

The value of the chips is Rs 60 for 50g because of the high quality packaging and lengthy shelf life. At current, 50 ladies workers are working within the manufacturing unit. The founders stated that they might quickly make the merchandise accessible on the native market as nicely. In addition to producing and promoting these merchandise, the startup can be engaged in analysis and improvement to enhance the vacuum-frying course of and discover new purposes for this know-how.