Campco to retail pepper from mid-May

Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd is planning to start the retail marketing of pepper in the domestic market by mid-May.

Campco Managing Director Suresh Bhandary told BusinessLine that the cooperative is looking to enter the retail segment by May 15. It is currently in the process of getting nutritional information from the Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR).

In fact, the cooperative has entered into an agreement with the Kozhikode-based IISR to use the facility available for spices processing at IISR. The facility will be used for cleaning, grading and packing whole black pepper and white pepper using the respective infrastructural availability at Kozhikode.

Stating that there are queries from Gujarat for pepper, Bhandary said Campco will focus on that market for retailing in the initial phase. To begin with, pepper packs of 500 gm will be made available in the Gujarat market.

Campco has been purchasing pepper in 14 centres in Karnataka and Kerala from its grower members since the last four months, he said.

Many arecanut growers take up pepper as an intercrop in their plantations.

The 41st annual general meeting of the cooperative in 2015 approved the amendments to its bye-laws to procure, process, and sell pepper.

The amendments to the bye-laws were taken up as there was demand from the grower members to provide marketing facilities for the pepper grown in their plantations.

Campco also deals in the procurement, process and sale of commodities such as arecanut, cocoa and rubber.

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