CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysuru, was among the CSIR labs that took part in the stakeholders’ meet held recently at Port Blair for dissemination of CSIR technologies in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Sridevi Annapurna Singh, the Director of CSIR-CFTRI, and a few scientists from the institute took part in the meeting and shared the technologies developed in the CSIR-CFTRI that can be adopted in the island region. The meet was organised to address the region’s specific challenges and how the CSIR technologies help in addressing those challenges.
According to a release, the objective of the event was to showcase CSIR technologies tailored to the socio-economic and ecological context of the region, facilitate dialogue among stakeholders, build collaborations and encourage partnerships for technology implementation, and provide capacity building through technology demonstrations and presentations.
One of the key focus areas of the event was food processing technologies in which the CSIR-CFTRI is a leader. Other focus areas, included exploring CSIR’s solutions and their potential applications in the region like Floriculture Mission, AROMA Mission, Solar Drier Technology, Bee Farming and Beehive Technologies, Water Desalination Technologies, etc.
The stakeholders’ meeting followed an earlier event held in January 2024 and aims to further explore the potential application of CSIR technologies to foster sustainable development in the region. The event was graced by a distinguished panel of experts, the release noted.
Dr. Sridevi Annapurna Singh, in a press release, stated that CSIR-CFTRI technologies shall be of great importance for uplifting the quality of value-added food products in this region. She spoke about the important technologies developed by CSIR-CFTRI such as Amul milk powder, spice oils and oleoresins, instant mixes, etc.
She emphasised the need to adopt indigenous technologies for rural development and elaborated on the coconut-based technologies of CSIR-CFTRI. The technologies and their implementation was discussed in this meeting considering the easy availability of coconut in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
At the meeting, the Director listed out several training programmes, incubation centers, and hand-holding support CSIR-CFTRI has been providing for rural capacity building.
Technical session 1 related to the ‘making value-added products using food processing technologies of CSIR-CFTRI’ was presented by Dr. Sridevi Annapurna Singh, Aashitosh Inamdar, and Pratap Singh Negi.
The CSIR-CFTRI technologies suitable for Andaman and Nicobar Islands along with dissemination and adaptation strategies were presented in the session.
The coconut-based technologies developed by the CSIR-CFTRI, include coconut beverages from tender coconut, tender coconut water concentrate with added sugar, value-added products from coconut, coconut oil blends with other vegetable oils, spray dried coconut milk powder, coconut spread based on mature coconut water concentrate, and coconut fibre and virgin coconut oil, the data available at the CFTRI stated.
The CFTRI has developed and standardised value-added spray-dried coconut milk powder for commercial-level production.
Published – March 18, 2025 07:29 pm IST