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Croitre is bringing millets to France to make breads, Stallups brought technology to manage a cattle farm and its dairy related activities.
Samples of freshly baked six breads are laying on the table of the Laboratoire D’essais Des Materiels Et Produits Alimentaires (LEMPA), the French National Laboratory for Bakery & Pastry, at Rueen Cedex in Normandy region of France waiting for approval from the authorities and to make inroads into the Frenchboulangeries.
Bread samples lying on the lab table for testing is a usual site in the Lempa Laboratorie. But, the difference now is that these breads are made from Millets brought over to France from India by Bangalore based Swetha Ashwath Narayana, one of the four founders of a start-up Croitre Millet Pvt Ltd. Croitre wants to develop a habit for French consumers to use millet based breads.
It is not only Indian company that wants to start its operations in Normandy, France. Bangalore based Stellaps is another company which is already working at the Norman Experimental Farm, a professional experimental farm set up to promote new technologies, for dairy digitisation with its technology for the data driven dairy industry.
While Stellapps is already settled Croitre is seeking the entry into French business with its millet based breads. When a group of Indian journalists visited LEMPA lab, breads made from Ragi, Bajra and Proso millet were ready for testing and tasting. Croitre has supplied millet and wheat pre-mixes to make those breads for testing.
LEMPA had approved the pre-mixes after stringent testing for safety as well as for protein content and its nutritional analysis was got done from another lab. “We will recommend the usage of millet pre-mixes to the bakers now,” Pierre Tristan Fleury, Director, LEMPA told the visiting journalists.
Millet is healthy and almost gluten free. Demand for gluten free diet is growing. But it is used to make bread for the first time in France where wheat and corn are used for breads, said Fleury.
Croitre is planning to bring the millets from India and then make pre-mix locally for which it is setting a company in Normandie region, said Swetha.
“AdNormandie, the agency set up to support local businesses and help to set up new businesses in Normandy is providing all the help to Croitre to set up its company in Normandie,” said Aparajita Sen, Charge d’Affaires International at AD Normandie. She said the demand for gluten free and healthy food is rising and hence the millet based bread has a good potential market.
Croitre is bringing millets to France to make breads, Stallups brought technology to manage a cattle farm and its dairy related activities. “Every cattle and machine at the experimental farm is fitted with a sensor that keeps on relaying information about the cattle and the machine which can be accessed through a mobile app developed by Sellapps,” Ravishankar Shirur, co-founder, Stellapps.
He explained the entire procedure of gathering information to the visiting Indian journalists. Any abnormality noticed in the information relayed to mobile about any animal through wireless data transfer can alert the operators to check the health of animal. Stellapps has different technologies for different operations at cattle farm and dairy, all aimed at improving the operations and efficiency. They involve all operations from monitoring cattle to payment to farmers, integration of procurement activity, milk quality and logistics management and monitoring temperature variation.
In order to exploit its potential and strengths in agriculture & agro food products and to further expand & strengthen the agro food business in Normandy, the AdNormandie organisation is offering various incentives for those who wish to set up business in Normandy and specially giving support for the establishment of foreign companies to establish in Normandy. They include even administrative formalities, real estate solutions, partnerships and funds. “Normandy is good for investment because it is close to Paris and London, has optimized road network, pan-European rail connections and four regional airports,” said Sen.
Milind Kokje
(The writer was invited by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the French Government to Normandy and local hospitality was provided by the ministry.)