The food processing unit is designed and equipped with machinery as per FSSAI guidelines
Allola Indrakaran Reddy, Minister for Endowment, Law, Forest and Environment, Telangana, recently inaugurated a food processing unit owned and run by women, in Utnoor, Telangana.
The Komaram Bheem Peanut Chikki Industries that the minister opened is wholly owned by first-generation tribal entrepreneurs. The unit will supply to government nutrition programs and anganwadis in the tribal region.
This food processing unit is part of a successful collaboration between the Tribal Cooperative Finance Corporation Limited (TRICOR), Tribal Welfare Department of Telangana State, Government of India’s Ministry of Tribal Affairs and ICRISAT’s Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP). This collaboration aims to localize production and address malnutrition, besides improving economic conditions of tribal communities.
The food processing unit is designed and equipped with machinery as per Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) guidelines. It will ensure production of nutritious food products meeting national and international market standards.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has trained 80 tribal women farmers from Utnoor, Eturnagaram and Bhadrachalam in Telangana to manage food processing units that are being set up in these blocks.
The project trains tribal women to be “Nutrition Entrepreneurs” and is critical to ensure evolution of local value chains around local food production and consumption to make vulnerable tribal communities sustainable, especially post COVID-19. Going forward, this initiative will empower tribal communities by establishing more units and build their capacity to run the units in a sustainable manner, contributing towards not only health and nutrition, but sustainable livelihoods as well.