”Millet Finder” shows more opportunities for Entrepreneurs:
Millets are ancient grains that are healthy and nutritious due to their rich content of antioxidants, nutrients, minerals, and other properties. I must say they are the ”Future Crops” because they are going to address important issues like food, feed, fuel, health, malnutrition, and climate change.
With millets lot of value-added products are been made in India and abroad but we are aware of a few. To bridge this gap ”Millet Finder” is in your hand.
Millet Finder Launched:
”Millet Finder” was launched at Food Tech Expo on 25th, November 2020 by the International Crops Research Institute of the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and ICAR-Indian Institute of Millets Research, Hyderabad. It will help the users in finding the 500 millet products across 30 countries. Millet products are categorized based on Country, Crops, and Type ( Baby Food, Baking, Beverages, Flakes, Flour, Grains, Multi grains, Pasta, Ready to Eat, and Ready to Cook).
Millet Products around the World:
Nowadays Millets are becoming consumer-driven as people are more health-conscious. This has made Entrepreneurs enter into this segment and innovative products are coming into the market. Definitely, Millet Finder will help the new entrepreneurs in their decision-making process.
I still remember the day of my visit to ICRISAT, Hyderabad where I could find a lot of Millet products being displayed. I must thank Joanna Kane-Potaka, Executive Director, Smart Food, Assistant Director-General – Strategic Marketing and Communications, ICRISAT for explaining the products worldwide.
Opportunities for Entrepreneurs:
In my previous blog on Millet Market Analysis in 2020, where I had mentioned about the Millet Market Forecast Report by Reportlinker.com that North America Millets Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% during 2019-2027 to reach US$ 1,192.24 million by 2027. The huge growth rate will encourage the new Entrepreneurs and tap the International Millet Market.
- Millet Finder will give an idea about the millet products available in the concerned country.
- It will help to know about the consumers’ tastes.
- It will help to target the untapped millet markets.
- It will help to know the nutritional value of the products.
- It will help in knowing the consumer demand in a particular place.
- It will bring awareness about a millet product for a consumer.
- It will help new entrepreneurs to reach customers.
In India, ICAR-IIMR, Hyderabad a premiere institute popularising Millets as healthy food and developed a millet brand Eatrite. The Nutrihub Incubation Program is helping startups to develop new millet products by providing technology and business support. The entrepreneurs have developed many innovative millet products and made them available in retail stores and online globally.
Future of Millet Finder:
The lead creator of ”Millet Finder” Parkavi Kumar, has a plan to add more millet products around the world in the coming days and automate the system using Artificial Intelligence(AI) so that it becomes easy to operate and find the right information.
If you want to add your company/product to this database of Millet Finder, you can send your details to k.parkavi@cgiar.org.
To explore the millet products of the world, you can just click on Millet Finder.
Author: Tapas Chandra Roy, Certified Farm Advisor on Millets (To subscribe Youtube Channel: TCR Connecting Agriculture)
Thank you for remembering your visit to ICRISAT. Wonderful and important work you are doing to keep on getting the word out about the the amazing qualities of millets. They really are a unique food that can make major impact if we can get it into mainstream.