Vijayapura learns a lemon can be a moneyspinner

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

When Siddu Pujari, an agricultural scientist, went to inspect 44 lemon pickle units in his district, Vijayapura, he came back dejected. As many as 30 were sick. He had himself got 41 units sanctioned under the PMFE (Prime Minister Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) scheme after he’d been appointed its district resource person. At the time, not even one unit in Vijayapura, in north Karnataka, was under the scheme.

“I had got an award for this achievement,” says Pujari. The units were hamstrung because they weren’t branded and therefore found it tough to sell their pickles, he realized. It’s not as if they lacked the skills to make good pickles.

Pujari decided to help the units market their pickles by taking the initiative to form a Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) called Palanduh. “It was really more out of moral responsibility that we got our FPO registered in November 2022. We started branding the pickles of all these units and provided them marketing support for a nominal commission,” says Pujari, who is CEO of Palanduh FPO.

The units were also helped to invent new lemon products. The enterprising FPO now has 11 products which it sells under its brand name, V-Joy.

Lemon is listed as Vijayapura’s centrepiece product under the Central government’s One District One Product (ODOP) scheme.  Vijayapura, Sindhagi and Indi in the district are well-known for lemon cultivation. Indi alone grows 70 percent of the district’s lemons.  Karnataka’s lemon output is about 300,000 tonnes annually.

Lemons are available in Vijayapura throughout the year. They are packed in sets of 1,000 called daag and an efficient marketing system exists to sell them.   

The problem is that the price of lemon rises in summer, when demand is high but availability is low, and falls in winter during the harvesting season when availability is high and demand is low. A daag of lemons is priced at Rs 2,500 in winter. In summer, the price spirals to Rs 20,000.

A small percentage of lemons, brought to the market for sale by farmers, always includes a few yellow ones. These have ripened so they are sold at throwaway prices of Rs 400 to Rs 500 per daag. Palanduh FPO buys the yellow fruits with the help of another FPO. “We pay farmers Rs 800 per daag,” says Pujari, who comes from a farming family and has worked with NGOs.

Initially, the FPO didn’t know what to do with the yellowing lemons. “We wracked our brains day and night, thinking of what new products we could make with yellow  lemons,” says Pujari.

The FPO launched two unique products which turned out to be bestsellers. One, recently launched, is an instant lemon drink mixture in a sachet called Insta Lemon. Twelve grams of the powder, priced at Rs 10, is enough for 200 ml of water. All you have to do is pour the sachet’s contents into a bottle of water, shake it and your drink is ready. It’s also sugar-free.

“Our customers buy a half-litre bottle of mineral water. They mix two sachets of our Insta Lemon and enjoy instant nimbu pani,” says Pujari.

The second product is Lemon Chatpati. It’s made by adding salt to dehydrated lemon. “It’s like medicine for diarrhoea and vomiting,” explains Pujari. “Lemon Chatpati has caught on with truck drivers travelling long distances. They chew it to avoid falling asleep at the wheel. It also helps them stay away from chewing tobacco.”

Both are unique products which don’t face competition because no other company in South India is making them, so far.

The FPO also makes lemon concentrate and squash. The concentrate is a thick, pure liquid made only from lemon. There is a juice powder too. Like the Insta Lemon drink, it has no sugar.

Then there are two round dehydrated products it sells — black lemon and dry lemon. Pujari says these are in demand in the Arab countries of West Asia for making biryani. Dry lemon is used to make lemon tea. Dry lemon is further processed to make black lemon.

Three types of pickle are also made — sweet lemon, chili lemon and spicy lemon. Their bestseller is sweet lemon which is made with organic jaggery, not sugar. These are outsourced to women entrepreneurs in Vijayapura who are experts at making pickles. And the best part? “Unlike other pickles, we use no oil in our pickles,” says Pujari.

Even lemon peel is not discarded. After extracting juice, the peel is converted into lemon peel powder. This is in demand by the detergent, cosmetic and Ayurvedic medicine industries.

The FPO also sells dehydrated moringa, curry leaves, mint and more. “When vegetable prices crash, farmers approach us. We buy their vegetables like onion and carrot, at a slightly better price than market rates, dehydrate and sell such products at our own pace,” says Pujari.

Last year Palanduh FPO produced  Rs 46.08 lakh worth of lemon products for which it used 300 tonnes of lemon.  In the past three years, the FPO’s turnover was an impressive Rs 3 crore.

The FPO is on the cusp of success due to its range of ingenuous products. The Raichur Agriculture University helped by providing technical guidance for product development. Pujari says his FPO is especially appreciative of the hand holding they received from Dr Udayakumar Nidoni, head of the university’s Food Engineering Department.

 

Shops and markets

Palanduh FPO has three sales outlets. One is near its production centre, the second near its office in Bijapur city and the third in Basavana Bagewadi vegetable market. Twenty percent of its total sales comes from these three outlets. It also offers home delivery in Bijapur. A year ago, it began serious marketing of its products to other cities. It is in the process of setting up its own website.

In Bengaluru shops, GI Tagged, a shop in H.S.R. layout, and Utthejana in Malleswaram are stocking the products under a B2B deal. They sell the FPO’s products under their own brand name.

While GI Tagged buys Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 worth of products every month, Utthejana buys around Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh worth. With promotion, marketing and online sales, the FPO’s Insta Lemon and Lemon Chatpati have a bright future in states with long, searing summers.  

 

Contact: Siddu Pujari, CEO, Palanduh FPO — 70192 68550