Ever thought you can use a spoon and eat it too? Making this possible is Hyderabad-based startup BK Environmental Innovations Private Limited, which turned the concept into reality by baking a mix of sorghum (jowar), rice and wheat flour as an alternative to the environmentally-detrimental plastic and wood cutlery — spoons, forks, knives and chopsticks.
“Sale of plastic cutlery, growing at a rate of about 30 per cent, is generating significant non-biodegradable waste and contributing to overflowing landfills. Edible cutlery is the only solution that provides the same convenience of disposable forks, spoons and chopsticks,” says Narayana Peesapaty, managing director of BK Environmental.
“Besides, domestic consumption of jowar, traditionally bracketed as the poor man’s staple, has decreased. Our idea is to promote jowar cultivation through contract farming and revitalise jowar as a nutritious snack,” he adds.
Sale of plastic cutlery is pegged at 50 billion units per year in India, which translates into Rs 1,000 crore in value terms, while it is 200 billion units (Rs 20,000 crore) in the US. Japanese dispose 24 billion chopsticks every year, while an estimated 35 billion chopsticks are used and thrown in China.
Peesapaty, who left his job at the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) to branch out on his own, has so far invested Rs 70 lakh in research and development of edible cutlery.
Moulds for edible spoons are already in place and the company is waiting for more investments to flow in to make cast moulds for other products, which will have a shelf-life of nine months, and position them in the market under its ‘Bakey’s’ brand. While ITC Welcome Hotels group and the Royal Jet owned by the king of UAE are using the edible spoons, Taj Group of Hotels has evinced interest in trying them, he says.