“It’s a healthy and tasty alternative to single-use plastic,” says Shaila Gurudutt, an ex-IBMer who along with her colleague Lakshmi Bheemachar founded Bengaluru-based start-up Gajamukha Foods in 2017. After eight months of trial and error they launched their first edible tableware in 2018 under the brand name EdiblePRO. “I started by literally cooking in my kitchen. I experimented with various flours and settled on millets for their nutritional value,” says Gurudutt who is somewhere in her early 50s but likes to think of herself as a 17-year-old. Today they make 32 products in over a 100 variants in a semi-automatic factory. So you can have a plate tasting of spinach or beetroot or have a spicy soup bowl and spoon to add additional flavour to a bland chicken broth. “Our soup bowls can hold hot liquid for up to 40 minutes. However, most people will finish having their soup in around 20 minutes and by that time the bowl is suitably soaked to be eaten,” says Gurudutt in all seriousness.
Another popular product is the coffee mug. Drink your coffee and keep nibbling on the cup like a biscuit or mathri, she says. EdiblePRO, which is exporting to six countries, has a variety of plates, bowls, cutlery, etc., priced between Rs 2 and Rs 260 a piece depending upon the product and the variation. While it primarily caters to the B2B market and targets events, destination weddings, theme parties, etc., it is currently available for retail through quick delivery service blinkit. It will be available on six e-commerce platforms including Flipkart, Amazon and Ebay in the next few weeks.
Read more : https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/back-of-the-book/story/how-edible-cutlery-is-helping-india-fight-plastic-waste-341008-2022-07-11
