Heard of coconut honey and syrup? Or capsules of virgin coconut oil? The Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) has come out with these products.
The institute, headquartered at Kasaragod, Kerala, had earlier made sugar and jaggery from neera (a sweet sap from coconut palm), coconut chips, virgin coconut oil and desiccated coconut as value-added products.
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Director of the institute P. Chowdappa told
He claimed that consuming virgin coconut oil helped improve immunity and reduced obesity as it had high lauric acid.
One tablet could be taken in the morning and one in the evening, he said and added that it had transferred the technology of making capsules to three companies recently.
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The director said that sugar made from neera was good for diabetic patients as the glycemic index was low.
Without elaborating much on the honey and syrup, he said the institute would hold a meeting with industrialists and entrepreneurs in Kasaragod on January 31 on transferring the technologies. Anyone interested in the commercial production of these value-added products could attend the meet.
He said such entrepreneurs would have to sign an agreement with the institute and pay royalty fixed by it. Scientists and technologists of the institute would help them till the venture streamlined and the industry manufactured them without hiccups.
Other uses of coconut
Mr. Chowdappa said that now the CPCRI was promoting coconut cultivation as a beverage, medicinal and food crop and not as an oil seed crop as many value-added products could be made from it.
He said that of the total coconut production in the country in the last decade, only 5 per cent was consumed as value-added products.
According to him, 34 per cent was used to extract oil, 45 per cent for domestic use and 15 per cent as tender coconut.