Tender coconut, fair and lovely

Kaja Mohideen. PHOTO: GNANAVEL MURUGAN / The Hindu
Kaja Mohideen. PHOTO: GNANAVEL MURUGAN / The Hindu

The strong pith is removed using a machine and weight is reduced to 800 gm.

Innovation in marketing tender coconut has been his watchword. He has designed special machinery for peeling off the strong pith before despatching them to market.

The new shape of the tender coconut appears white all around – a value-addition with a new look. Its weight gets reduced from about 2 kg to less than 800 grams or so.

“The value addition mainly aims at attracting the consumers besides ensuring environment-friendly ambience at the retail sales outlets,” says Kaja Mohideen (50), referring to the growing demand for the produce in the city in the last one week since he introduced his sales.

With lightweight, it could be stocked at commercial complexes and medical shops. Using his experience of three decades in the trade, he had devised the plan of using a machinery for ‘clean coconut’.

Mr. Mohideen procures about 6,000 coconuts a week from Pollachi and a group of six workers work on the machinery peeling off the pith. Explaining the functioning of the machinery designed at Pollachi, he says adequate training had been imparted to all the workers on the task.

At the retail outlets on the pavements, the pavement vendors would be spared of the problem of collecting and disposing the waste pith.

White tender coconuts kept ready for sale. PHOTO: GNANAVEL MURUGAN / The Hindu
White tender coconuts kept ready for sale. PHOTO: GNANAVEL MURUGAN / The Hindu

Export-oriented

Apart from local market, he has explored the possibility of exporting it the tender coconut to Australia. “There has been a growing demand for coconut in Australia. The container with a capacity for 6,000 tender coconuts would reach Australia by sea within 20 days from Chennai,” he says.

To attract customers, he has fixed the price per coconut at Rs. 20. “My investment on the machinery is Rs. 90,000 and I have to incur a huge expenditure for purchasing the coconut from Pollachi,” Mr. Mohideen added.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Special Correspondent / Tiruchi – November 10th, 2014

21 thoughts on “Tender coconut, fair and lovely

  1. Tender coconut is so beautiful Please send me more details and Mr Kadhar maiden contact No

  2. Please share kaja maideen’s contact number. We would like to order coconuts for export.

  3. It’s very good idea pl.send Kaja mohideen contact details.Mobile 9042470460 KARUR, Tamilnadu

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