Encouraged by the growing demand for ready-to-eat traditional Punjabi cuisine in global and domestic markets, Markfed has decided to set up a modern cannery to ramp up production with a capital outlay of Rs 22 crore. “The new cannery line coming up in Rajpura, Punjab will specifically cater to the rising demand for our ready-to-eat food segment in overseas and domestic markets,” a senior official of Punjab State Cooperative Supply & Marketing Federation (Markfed) told PTI in Chandigarh.
The proposed new facility spread across 11 acres would boast of cannery and retort pouching line of 30 tonnes per day capacity, bottling of five tonnes and grinding of three tonnes capacity. The plant is expected to be ready within a year, he said. Markfed, which is one of Asia’s largest cooperatives, has a wide range of ready-to-eat ethnic food such as Dal Makhni, Saron ka Saag, Khadi Paneer, Muttar Paneer, Rajma, Baingan ka Bhartha, among others.
At present, it has an old cannery facility at Jalandhar. The company’s export has been concentrated in Dubai and other West Asian countries. |