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A trial consignment of arecanut, which was exported to a Chinese company by the Mangaluru-based Campco (Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative) Ltd in November 2016, has got the quality certification from the Chinese customer.
Campco had exported first trial consignment of around 360 kg of arecanut to a Hunan Kou Wei Wang Group on November 24.
Suresh Bhandary, Managing Director of Campco, told BusinessLine that the co-operative is in receipt of the quality report by the Chinese company. The report says that the “arecanut from India is a qualified product by overall merit”, he said.
Stating that there is demand for tender arecanut as a mouth freshener in Chinese market, he said China is growing only 10 per cent of its requirements. Chinese market is now looking at India and Indonesia for the supply of arecanut to its companies.
He said the co-operative had sourced tender arecanut from Shivamogga and Puttur in Karnataka and Coimbatore from Tamil Nadu for the purpose of the trial consignment. These were processed at Campco’s unit in Puttur. After certifying the quality of the processed quantity at the Government’s Plant Quarantine Laboratory, the consignment was exported to China in November.
The Chinese company, which tested the quality of the trial consignment, has shown interest in the green tender arecanut sample of the consignment that has retained its colour.
In spite of the encouraging feedback on quality, the export of arecanut may not look viable for Indian growers at this juncture. It is because the price growers get in the domestic market is more than what they would get if they decide to export.
(Tender arecanut is harvested in only a few places in arecanut-growing regions. At present, tender arecanut is traded at ₹45-50 a kg in the Davanagere market. When the price of tender arecanut is back calculated it comes to around ₹200 a kg for the dry white arecanut. However, the growers are getting around ₹270 a kg for white arecanut in the domestic market now.)
Bhandary said that the Chinese market has opened one more revenue option for Indian arecanut growers, in case of a major downfall in the market in future.
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