Campco to export processed tender arecanut to Chinese firm

If everything goes well as per the plan, then the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd will export first consignment of processed tender arecanut to China in the first week of October, on a pilot basis. The processed tender arecanut will be exported to a company in Hunan province for making chewing mouth freshener.

A delegation of Campco visited the province for in the month of June. It held talks with Kou Wei Wang (King of Taste) Company and had entered into a memorandum of understanding.

Speaking to DH, Managing Director of Campco Suresh Bhandary M said around 500 kg of tender arecanut procured from the local growers was processed at Puttur. “The Campco will procure tender arecanut from growers in Kerala within two weeks and will process it according to the needs of the Chinese company. An auto drier has been developed at the Campco factory in Puttur to process the tender arecanut,” Bhandary stated.

He said the Chinese company would market peels of tender arecanut as mouth freshener after a value addition without tobacco. There are over 20 such industries in China and there is a short of supply of raw materials for them. There is a lot of scope for export of quality tender arecanut to China from India. Campco purchases tender arecanut from growers at the rate of Rs 110 per kg, he added.

According to an estimate, India produces about 7.02 lakh tonnes of arecanut per year. “Even if 20% is exported for making mouth freshener, the price of arecanut in the domestic market would be stabilised,” a source said.

Though China is largest producer of arecanut in the world, the production is not sufficient for the consumption of the country. The representatives of China had placed a demand for 1,200 tonne of arecanut.

According to the Commerce Ministry’s statistics, India exported 3,470 tonnes of arecanut to various countries in 2013-14 and 7,057 tonnes 2014-15. India imported 31,571 tonnes of arecanut from Sri Lanka and 11,283 tonnes from Indonesia during 2015-16. The move of the Campco to export processed tender arecanut has instilled hopes among the arecanut growers in Dakshina Kannada, a grower from Sullia said.