Copyright thehindu
The State’s largest honey processing unit with an installed capacity of 10 tonnes per day, set up by Gramajanya Farmers’ Producer Company (FPC) Ltd at Puttur in Dakshina Kannada became partly operational on Friday. According to Ramapratheek Kariyal and Niranjan Polya, directors of the FPC, in addition to honey processing, an in-house testing laboratory and a cold storage were made fully operational at the unit. The packaging unit and ointment manufacturing machine are yet to be made fully operational. The unit, established at a cost of about ₹4 crore, will be made fully operational either by the end of this year or early next year, Mr. Kariyal, director (operations), told The Hindu. The honey processing meant that the moisture level of honey will be reduced to increase its shelf life. Mr. Kariyal said that of the 900 members of the FPC, about 200 are commercial apiculturists who produce about 150 tonnes of honey a year. In addition to processing the honey procured by the FPC, the unit will also process honey on job work basis for others. The National Bee Board (NBB), under Mini Mission II of the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, had released ₹2.09 crore to the FPC to set up the unit at Mundur, near Puttur. The unit availed itself of ₹2 crore loan from a nationalised bank to meet the balance ₹2 crore required, he said. The FPC is into contract farming of apiculture and manufacturing of value added products of honey and bee wax. It is the pioneer FPC in Karnataka which is into contract farming of apiculture since 2021. “There is a potential to harvest 9,000 tonnes of honey per annum in the coastal region comprising some parts of Kasaragod district of Kerala,” Mr. Kariyal said. Mr. Polya, director (marketing and PR), said the FPC marketed about 30 honey and bee wax based value-added products. The company marketed different variants of honey like forest honey, box honey, sting-less bee honey, jamun honey, areca honey and the like. He said that some of the other value products of the FPC comprised lip balm, moisturiser cream, mascara, dry fruits honey, super seeds in honey, dry fruits honey jam, bird eye chilli flavour honey, ginger flavour honey, honey ginger candy, honey amla candy, and beeswax body lotion. “Our cosmetic grade natural skin cream is highly appreciated by users,” Mr. Polya said. “The shift from manual operation to mechanisation will help in enhancing quality of value-added products,” Mr. Polya added.
