: How Solar Drying Fruits Helped My Family’s Chikoo Business Increase Sales by 40% #IndiaNEWS #India Hailing from Dahanu in Maharashtra, fourth-generation chikoo horticulturists Latika and Achyut

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How Solar Drying Fruits Helped My Family’s Chikoo Business Increase Sales by 40% #IndiaNEWS #India
Hailing from Dahanu in Maharashtra, fourth-generation chikoo horticulturists Latika and Achyut Patil had been engaged in cultivating the fruit for around 40 to 50 years. They would sell their produce to neighbouring cities, albeit without getting full profits.
“During peak season, 30 per cent of the harvest was wasted, and there were times when farmers would get a rate of a meagre Rs 7 per kg from the market,� recalls Ninad Patil, Latika’s son.
On retiring as a teacher in 2015, Latika says she found herself with a lot of time on her hands. Her interest in the processing of fruits deepened during the years following her retirement. “In the programmes I took part in, I learnt about the different ways to process fruits. Sun-drying would cause the fruits to get spoiled, and we were on the lookout for new alternatives. �
Since 2016, the Patil family has been running Gold Orchards, which focuses on the cultivation of chikoo. The reason for the choice of fruit, they say, was its popularity in the area, as well as its ability to turn into a successful venture. “Since the 2012 Chikoo Festival started as an annual tourism event at Bordi Beach, it helped us gauge the market and people’s interest in this humble fruit,� says Ninad.
The team at Gold Orchards (Picture source: Latika Patil)
 
The same year that they started their business, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry awarded the Geographical Indication (GI) tag to Dahanu Gholvad Chikoo for being the best among Indian varieties with its unique sweet taste and soft creamy texture. This gave the family the confidence to make further investments in the chikoo processing industry.
However, sensing that the problem of fruit spoilage was putting a damper on sales, the Patils decided to find a solution to this. While sun-drying had been a popular option in the region, with Latika’s husband too having resorted to it, it was not an ideal solution.
Highlighting the major concerns in employing this technique, Ninad explains, “There’s a three to four day drying period, uncertainty in output due to weather conditions, a shelf life of only two to three months, discolouration of fruit, and degradation of nutrients, in addition to the high rate of spoilage. �
A fascinating alternative
During the search to find processing alternatives, Ninad came across a company ‘M/s Science for Society (S4S) Technologies Pvt Ltd’, which had developed a very efficient solar conduction dryer (SCD). He later found out that this dryer was developed by technocrats from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Wadala and had been successfully implemented for many applications.

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