Can greens and fruits grown in your yard be preserved and loved all 12 months spherical? The reply lies in a quiet nook of Kalavoor in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, on the Jayapriya Home, the place P Jaya,a retired panchayat secretary, has turned her ardour for meals processing right into a thriving entrepreneurial enterprise.
Jaya makes use of a scientific methodology known as dehydration to course of vegetables and fruit, preserving their color, flavour and dietary worth. Soaking the dehydrated gadgets in water for simply 10 minutes restores them to their authentic kind. Beneath the model identify ‘Veg Bites’, she now sells greater than 40 value-added merchandise produced from dehydrated produce.
P Jaya close to the dehydrator machine at her meals processing unit in Kalavoor, Alappuzha. Picture: Karshakasree
Amongst her hottest gadgets is a ready-to-cook sambar equipment, made with a exact mixture of sliced and dehydrated greens. There’s additionally sliced onion, beetroot powder, carrot powder, ripe mango powder, crushed jackfruit seed powder and even candy treats like candies produced from jackfruit, mango, apple, and kiwi. Her tutti frutti, produced from papaya and naturally colored with beetroot, carrot and butterfly pea flower, is successful with youngsters and adults alike.
However it’s not simply vegetables and fruit. Jaya additionally dehydrates and sells medicinal vegetation similar to life plant, allspice, and Phyllanthus niruri in ready-to-use packets. The whole lot from jackfruit and mango to tubers and mushrooms will be dehydrated and marketed, she says.
The dehydration course of takes about 18 hours and reduces the load of the produce to one-tenth, making storage and transportation simple. The dehydrated merchandise will be preserved for as much as a 12 months.
Picture: Shutterstock/nadia_if
Jaya’s journey into meals processing started with the style of a banana fig—a present from a pal throughout her time as a panchayat secretary. Impressed by the flavour, she pursued formal coaching in fruit and vegetable processing at Mannuthy Agriculture College. By the point she retired in 2023, she had already charted a course for her second innings as an entrepreneur.
Initially, she thought of utilizing a standard dryer. However throughout consultations with the District Industries Centre, she realised {that a} dehydrator was a greater choice because it removes solely the moisture, leaving the vitamins and vibrant colors intact.
Beginning small, she used greens grown on 70 cents of land close to her residence. As demand grew, she started sourcing produce from native markets. With the assistance of machines for laundry and slicing, she now provides her merchandise to supermarkets and eating places. As soon as she secures Kerala Develop branding from the Agriculture Division, she goals to launch on-line gross sales as properly.
