Aiming to provide a tasty and sustainable alternative to plastic disposables, The Pioneer brings to you an edible-cutlery startup that manufactures these cutleries that are made of healthy and tasty jaggery, and grains.
Rashmi Bhumi Reddy
The food industry has made various innovations that are both creative and palatable for food lovers. Well, we’ve come across several edible eateries like biscuit cups, ragi cups, and waffle cups, to name a few, which are used as alternatives for paper and plastic. But did you hear of gluten-free edible cutleries in a cup made out of jaggery and grains?
Attaware, an edible cutlery startup based in Delhi has launched an edible cutlery that is made of jaggery and grains. Healthy and tasty twist, isn’t it? The founder of the startup, Puneet Dutta, prior to coming up with his own startup, worked as a mobile recruitment manager for a software company in California. Later, during his visit to India, he saw a huge chunk of plastic styrofoam plates floating in the river and that particular visual had changed the direction of his life. Speaking to The Pioneer, over an exclusive chat Puneet shared, “I took the initiative by starting to look for alternatives and investing money and time. I never wanted to be someone who is cribbing about the problem all day long on social media, so I came up with a solution by spending six years of research to develop the product – eco-friendly edible cutlery. During my research period, the National Academy of Agricultural Research and Management, (NARAM), a government organisation in Rajendra Nagar, Hyderabad supported me in the same. There have been a lot of visits and offered incubation and financial support to me. Now, I have a solution that is available for the common man. It’s a simple tool without changing your lifestyle thereby bringing people closer to nature.”
The founder further shared that while marketing these products as eco-friendly, the products should possess certain properties or qualities in order to prove them to be environmentally friendly. These edible products are made of materials that can easily dissolve in water and they must disseminate in soil. Moreover, the raw materials and their manufacturing process need to be sustainable and environmentally friendly. The process involves no use of water, oil, preservatives, or baking methods in the production, thereby leaving no carbon footprint in the process. Besides being eco-friendly, these cups benefit the health of the consumers and animals as well.
When asked about why he used jaggery and grains for producing the cups, he highlights, “Jaggery has natural strength, and there’s no need of mixing anything else. When you mix jaggery and grains, the benefits become much more stronger and powerful. A lot of old buildings are constructed using jaggery and grains. Also, we had coating to make it tastier and flavourful by adding flavors, iron, etc.”
These cups, Puneet says are healthier than ragi and biscuit cups This specialty makes the startup stand out. They had launched four different types of cups for different purposes. Though they look similar externally, they are very different from each other based on their benefits. The cups can hold your beverages (tea or coffee) for over five and a half hours and do not in any way affect the taste of the beverage. In addition to this, they offer 2000 different flavours of cups to consumers.
Now, let’s learn about the four types of cups:
Regular cup:- This cup is used for regular purposes. While having your beverage, you will only get the fragrance of jaggery.
Flavoured cups:- These cups have different flavours and aim to solve the business
issue of a regular tea seller. One can deliver different flavours of tea or coffee by pouring the beverage into a specific flavour cup as ordered by customers. It makes it easier for the seller to give personalized choices or chosen flavours of customers. Some of the flavours are Cardamom, Chocolate, Ginger, Cinnamon, and many more.
Pre-mixed cups:- These cups are also known as ready-made cups and are used as alternatives for soda-type bottles. For instance, if you like to drink lime water, Aam Panna, Jal Jeera, or Orange drink, you will have to open the specific flavour cup and pour in the plain water. Your drink is ready. Heat the cup after having your beverage. Within this category, there are soup cups and special-purpose cups. In the case of soup cups, you can drink your favorite soup by choosing a specific flavour cup. Some of the flavors are tomato soup, corn soup, vegetable soup etc., while in the case of special-purpose cups, they are mainly used for nutrition purposes. It aims at providing solutions for
people who have iron deficiency. Around 52 percent of the Indian population suffers from iron deficiency, especially pregnant women. We have come up with a cup infused with iron which the body needs. By drinking water through the cup, iron deficiency is solved. It also has different flavours such as pani-puri, Aam Panna, Nimbu Pani, Jal Jeera and many more. For instance, if you drink water in the pani puri cup, you will taste the strong flavour of pani puri and thereby solving the iron deficiency.
Shilajit-based cup:- This cup is a blend of Shilajit and jaggery. When drinking in this cup it benefits the overall health. In regards to challenges, Punnet said that he has faced multiple challenges during the research phase as there is no support and investment. Moreover l, there is no awareness among people of the harm of consuming water through plastic every day.
Besides the cups, they also manufacture edible plates and spoons. However, the cups
stand out more than other cutlery. The edible cups can be bought via their social media sites for Rs 10-12 per piece and the shelf-life of the cup ranges from six months to twelve months.
Recently, they have also introduced an edible lamp that aims at solving problems at temples. After its use, the waste can be eaten by cows. The founder on the concluding note said the future goal of the company is to try to create a distribution channel and appoint distributors to distribute our products across cities in India.
