Ladakh Food Ltd (LFL) , a joint venture of the National Agriculture Co-operative Marketing Federation (NAFED) and the Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium (SFAC), has set up a Rs 6 crore integrated food processing plant to produce seabuckthron fruit juice, pulp and seed oil.
LFL aims at producing 2,000 tonnes of seabuckthron products every year. The seabuckthron processing plant is a part of the Rs 50 crore project.
Partially funded by the Exim Bank and ICICI Bank, Ladakh Food Ltd also has 300 farmers as equityholders.
Locally called tsestalulu, seabuckthron, a shrub of high medicinal value, is found in abundance in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. People, till now ignorant about its medicinal qualities, were using it as fuel and to fence their fields.
They realised its qualities following an awareness programme launched by the Save the Children Fund of the UK and the District Rural Development Organisation.
The company also processes leh berry, another locally-found shrub. Earlier, the company, with technical support from DRDO, was getting leh berry processed in Bhopal. Leh berry juice and pulp are being sold in the Delhi, Hyderabad, Nagpur and Pune markets. According to the company, 100,000 litre of leh berry juice was sold last year.
Seabuckthron contains over 190 compounds in seeds, pulp and juice. These compounds include Vitamin A, K and E, 22 fatty acids, 42 lipids, organic acids, amino acid, carbohydrates, other vitamins like C, B1 and B2, folic acid, tocopherols and flavonoids. They also contain phenols, terpenes and tannins, besides 20 mineral elements.
According to scientists, the high level Vitamin A, C and E, and the antioxidant phyto-chemicals extracted from seabuckthron including carten-oids, flavonoids and organic acids can play a vital role in reducing heart diseases. Because of its anti-ageing properties, seabuckthron derivatives are being used by the cosmetic industry abroad.
