Soon ripening of fruits, especially, mangoes during the summer season with harmful calcium carbide by unscrupulous dealers, may become a thing of the past as Heighten Innovative Solutions, a Hyderabad-based company, has come up with a safe solution to ripen fruits.
En-Ripe, the new product developed by the company, is a fruit ripening powder, which is recognised by FSSAI and it is found to be safe and non-toxic. The product is also promoted by the Government of Telangana.
Basically, the product is made up of vegetable starches, activated carbon and few other edible ingredients which are processed and dried to make the powder. The product is available in a pouch and is priced at Rs 15 to Rs 20. It takes two-three days for one pouch to ripen about 20 kg mangoes, 48 hours for bananas and papayas, 24 hours for chikoos, custard apples and one day for degrading of citrus fruits like lemon and mosambi.
While talking to FnB News, Sathwik Reddy, operations manager, Heighten Innovative Solutions, said, “En-Ripe aids in post-harvest artificial ripening, which is crucial to fruit availability and subsequent consumption. The only safe ripening method available was fruit ripening chamber but they are expensive. Each plant costs around Rs 50-70 lakh for the set-up. The output for ripening after using that chamber is limited. They are not available where they are required. They are only few of them available across the country.”
He said, “This is the main reason why people are highly dependent on chemicals although government has banned it, but people don’t have an alternative so they continue using them. People should stop using China powder pesticide which is Ethafoam as it is contaminating fruits and is a slow poison. Although, En-Ripe will help in less fruits wastage and the fruits will have longer shelf life while retaining the taste and aroma of the fruit. Due to the lockdown, the supply of our product is affected and things are on a slow pace. After this lockdown is over, we are planning to promote the product in pan-India and also planning to expand it further. ”
Meanwhile, the manufacturing unit has been temporarily closed because of the ongoing lockdown in the country. But, the company has a capacity to make two lakh pouches per day at its unit near Shamshabad and is looking to ramp it up to five lakh packets shortly and later to 10 lakh pouches to cater to South India and other places.