Sustaining momentum given by Year of Millets will be challenge: Industry officials

Chennai, Jan 11 (IANS) The International Year of Millets 2023 has given a good start for the super food companies and it is for them to maintain the momentum and go forward, said industry officials.

The year that ended saw the retail store shelves getting stocked with new millet based products and the hotels including dishes made with the super food in their menu.

On its part, the BJP-led Central government brought in Production Linked Incentive (PLI Scheme for millet based products, reduced the goods and services tax (GST) on branded millet flour to 5 per cent and 0 per cent for unbranded flour and held various programmes to spread the goodness of millets.

“With PLI in place, big food companies have started entering this space and more will get in. The segment is set to go grow albeit slowly. With India being a diabetic capital, millet based foods will become a major segment,” S. Murugan Narayanaswamy, CEO, of Southern Health Foods P Ltd, Chennai, makers of Manna brand food items told IANS.

The Manna brand which gained prominence with cricketer Ashwin Ravichandran as brand ambassador has been making and selling millet-based idli/dosa/upma/poha/kichadi/Pongal/rava dosa mixes and others even before 2023.

“Last year we launched millet based- wafer biscuits, atta, ribbon pakoda (a snack), cereals, health drinks for women and kids. We are now working on various other product categories,” Narayanaswamy said.

“The UN designating 2023 as an International Year of Millets was a big boost for the industry players. There were a lot of millet themed events, exhibitions. Now there is good awareness and the industry in a way benefitted as the people are aware about the goodness of millets,” Krishna Reddy, Co-Founder, Nutrivative Foods, Hyderabad told IANS.

Actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu invested Nutrivative Foods, Hyderabad that had brought farming of quinoa and chia seeds to India, came out with its innovative millet milk and later followed it up with millet based muesli, a breakfast food.

On their part, Hindustan Unilever Ltd launched its chocolate flavoured millet Horlicks and ITC Ltd came out with `Milletverse' – snacks like Finger Millet Caramel Brownie, Dark Fantasy Choco Fill Millet Brownie, Multigrain Millet Wellness Bread and Parmesan & Pepper Millet Sourdough Crackers with Pesto Dip.

So, what's next?

The focus of the companies will be on `milletising’ their existing products like biscuits, noodles, cakes and others, the industry officials told IANS.

To start with, companies will `milletise’ their existing products by adding a certain percentage of millets. The big players have to face a tricky situation of promoting their millet based products.

They can’t say their millet products are healthy which in turn will put a question mark on their rice/wheat/maida based products, the officials told IANS.

Only in recent times, big noodle makers have come out with wheat noodles as a healthier option against the flour noodles.

“Going forward, there will be more research and development from the smaller companies to come out with innovative products and differentiate themselves with bigger players. There may also be mergers and acquisitions of small companies by bigger ones,” Narayanaswamy added.

It should be noted, the push for millets actually began in 2018 as the year was designated as the Indian Year of Millets. And many of the industry pioneers are not around now, Nutrivative Foods’ Reddy said.

“There are several challenges that companies have to face when it comes to millets – farm production, price volatility, absence of standardised machinery for processing the millets and above all people’s taste buds. These are work in progress,” Reddy said.

Narayanaswamy said last year, there was good demand for millets but the supply did not match it and prices of some millets went up. Now the prices have come down a bit.

According to Reddy, if the Indian millets gain global acceptance like that of quinoa and chia seeds and exports become lucrative farmers here will be enthused to get into millet farming in a major way.

Last year, Nutrivative Foods acquired vegan dairy brand One Good.

The year 2023 also saw the global technology powerhouse announcing the successful culmination of its Work for Humankind Initiative, with six millet varieties making a comeback in Kanthalloor, Kerala.

Branded Kanthalloor Millets, these six varieties will make their way to the kitchens and tables of local homestays and Anganwadi schools, as a result of Lenovo’s tech-based prototype model to revive millet cultivation, ease millet production processes and create market linkages.

The PLI scheme is expected to make companies get into the sector which in turn would result in higher demand for the millets resulting in higher production.

According to the Central government, 30 millet based proposals -from eight large entities and 22 MSMEs- with an outlay of Rs. 800 crore, have been approved under the PLI scheme for millet based products.

It said a total of 1,825 loans have been sanctioned amounting Rs. 91.08 crore for individual millet processing units from various states under the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PMFME).

In addition, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries has identified 19 districts with millet products as One District One Product (ODOP) under its PMFME scheme and has approved three marketing and branding proposals for millet products.

Also, 17 incubation centres have been approved in 10 states having millet processing lines.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries also organised a Global Food Event “World Food India” (WFI) on November 3-5, 2023 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.

The event provided a supportive platform for interaction and synergy between producers, food processors, equipment manufacturers, logistics players, cold chain players, technology providers, start-up, innovators, food retailers and others and showcased the country as an investment destination for Food Processing including possibilities for Shree Anna/millets.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

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