Western Ghats Kokum Foundation - Organic Farming Association of ...

Konkan Kokum - A ready to serve, Kokum fruit drink in Tetrapack
Mukund Bhave, Aparant Agro Foods Pvt.Ltd., Maharashtra.
Aparant Agro Foods Pvt.Ltd. was formed by like minded people as a vehicle to
promote kokum drink nationally & internationally. The company was registered in
September 2009 and its first product a long shelf life kokum fruit drink with a brand name
Konkan Kokum was launched with much fanfare on 19th February 2010 at the Raigarh fort
ropeway base camp. The product received rave reviews from the print and electronic media
and a lot of encouragement from well known personalities of the western Ghats or konkan
region.
For a sustainable growth of the product it was necessary to understand the linkages
between all the stakeholders in the value chain namely, Consumers, Marketers,
Manufacturers and Farmer Producers.
The result of a comprehensive study is stated below for comments and discussions,
Consumer : Kokum Fruit drink is as well known as Salt & Sugar in the households of
coastal belt of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. with some of its associated medicinal
properties but not all. In the rest of these states however the product awareness is limited.
Even in this belt the drink is taken in summer only as a thirst quencher. Price affordability of
the available product was no issue
Marketer : Given the limited awareness ,it was a big challenge to promote the product,
Position it properly and Price it correctly, Creating awareness of the product’s various
medicinal properties first and then the necessity of bringing the product in a long shelf life
package perceived to make it expensive had to be tackled.
Distribution of the product in various cities in small quantities remains an issue.
Manufacturer : The manufacturing involves thermally treating the single strength fruit
drink to make it bacteria free and then aseptically (without ingress of surrounding air)
filling it in a specially designed package that will protect it from ingress of oxygen ,thereby
offering a very long shelf life .This processing capability and packaging technology is
available from a company called Tetra Pak who are world leaders is liquid food packaging
.They profess that : A package should save more than it costs !
Implying that their package is for high value (not price) product that needs to be taken from
a manufacturing plant to consumer all over the world in safe and secure condition till it
reaches its discerning consumer .
The processing and packaging plant works on a continuous basis through out the
day with planned intermittent cleaning in place. The smallest packaging plant has a
throughput of 1500 liters per hour which translates on 20 hours and 300 days in a year
basis to 9 million liters or 45 Million Packs of 200 ml size. Consequently the investment in a
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Resource Book on Kokum (Garcinia indica Choisy)
Western Ghats Kokum Foundation, Panaji - Goa