Going with the Center’s recent announcements on making India a global hub for millets, packaged food companies like Nestle, ITC, Britannia, HUL, and Tata Consumer, as well as many restaurants, are putting up motivated strategies to introduce millet-based packaged foods and restaurant menus to boost their existing millet portfolios.
Sudhir Nema, chief development and quality officer at Britannia, stated that they are innovating on functional ingredients by incorporating more super grains, seeds, nuts, and fruits with whole grains in their foods, actively engaging with partners, and also looking for appropriate opportunities in this evolving space. Britannia, which already produces packaged foods fortified with millets, oats, seeds, and herbs under its flagship Nutrichoice biscuit brand, is working with farming communities, millers, and government institutions to advance the millets association.
The Union Minister for Agriculture, Narendra Singh Tomar, informed that millets will be promoted in a mission mode this year, which has been declared the International Year of Millets. And the rush to integrate millets in their foods is to leverage first-mover advantage with consumers, despite challenges such as limited sowing capacity, hard-to-process grains, and limited shelf life.
Nestle, in fact, has already inked a tie-up to integrate super grains into its foods. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between millets incubator startup Nutrihub, the ICAR-Institute of Millets Research, and Nestlé’s R&D Center, a subsidiary of the Swiss foods maker’s parent company Nestle. The giant food company will be collaborating in science and technology to process millets, inculcate the health benefits of millets in different product applications, build consumer awareness, and ensure the sustainability of millets by developing regenerative agriculture practices.
HUL has also signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR), which was named a Center of Excellence by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech on February 1, to make millet-based drinks under its Horlicks brand.
Apart from being packed with nutrition and having a low glycaemic index, millets require very little water and can be grown in drought-prone areas. “We are seeing a lot of interest from large companies as well as startups in associating with millets,” said CV Ratnavathi, director at IIMR.
In April 2018, millets were rebranded as Nutri cereals, and the government declared it the National Year of Millets. The year 2023 has been declared as the International Year of Millets by the United Nations General Assembly, with the Indian government announcing that it wants to make India the global hub for millets.
Zorawar Kalra, managing director at Massive Restaurants, which runs multiple restaurant brands including Masala Library and Farzi Cafe, said its menu across brands now includes assorted millets in salads and main courses. “We are sourcing from different states and have faced no such challenges. We are using assorted pearl millets, quinoa, dehydrated lentils, and blueberries, and we have also tried to make the underrated khichdi with millets,” he said.