The coconut chunks from India have been gaining popularity in Europe. This year was a little different however, as codiv-19 crushed demand for a short while. Now that Europe is reopening, demand is also returning to a healthy level.
Santosh Exports only started exporting its coconut chunks a little over 18 months ago. While starting with smaller volumes, in just a short while the amount of chunks exported increased by over twenty times, Abhijeet Sethiya owner of Santosh Exports, explains: “The season started fabulously. We got an amazing kick start as we began and started with 100-200kgs a week initially. We now process around 4000-5000 kg a week round the year. We started processing fresh coconut chunks in January 2019. Volumes are rising every year, which makes sense as the coconut chunks are actually really healthy, high in fibers and could also improve one’s immune system.”
With the pandemic still leaving its mark on the entire world, getting the coconut chunks to Europe has proven more difficult than last year, Sethiya explains. “For coconut chunks, are main market is in Europe. Distribution to all the European countries happen from The Netherlands. However it has been more challenging recently, as demand has dropped since March due to Covid-19. Now that Europe is opening up again, the demand seems to be getting back to the normal level as well. When it comes to Covid though, the situation in India is getting bad at the moment. We’re at around 1 million cases in total. Though all care and precautions are to be taken, we are still allowed to function as a business.”
The extra precautions that packers and exporters have to take, make the work required harder to do, Sethiya explains. Yet Santosh has been able to diversify their offers, by including sweet corn on a cob: “The coronavirus is definitely affecting us, especially with labor. At Santosh Exports we believe in providing fresh cut products to the market, that are manually handled. Thus, we require a large number of people to work collectively. Our products, both Pomegranate arils and coconut chunks, are all manually handled. However we’re still expanding as always, for example we are now packing sweet corn on cob in single and twin packs. At ambient temperatures, they have a shelf life of 18 months! So far, Russia has been a major importer of the sweet corn on cobs from India, but we feel Europe has great potential, and as such we aim to enter the European market this year as well.”
For more information:
Abhijeet Sethiya
Santosh Exports
Tel: +91 880 51 51 151
Email: [email protected]
www.santoshpackaging.com
