Kerala-based Ambika Somasundaran makes value-added products with drumstick

The products include soup powder, millet mix, payasam mix and breakfast flour

It was a gamble for Ambika Somasundaran when she resigned from her well-paid job and became an entrepreneur in 2017. However, it has paid off. Today, she runs Kariat Dry Foods, a business venture at Marottichal in the Puthur panchayat of Thrissur district. In addition to flours, curry masalas and powders under the brand name, Dry Mix, the company sells value-added products from moringa (drumstick).

“I worked with ESAF Small Finance Bank for 17 years and as part of my job, I used to conduct and coordinate entrepreneurship development, skill development and awareness programmes. Eventually, I developed an interest to become an entrepreneur. So I chose to resign and pursue my dream,” she says.

When it came to zeroing in on a business idea, Ambika says that she had several options. “Ours is a hilly terrain where there are enough raw materials in the form of vegetables, turmeric, nendran bananas and jackfruit. With the guidance of District Industrial Centre I took a subsidy under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme [PMEGP] to start the venture,” she says.

Her objective was to make “safe-to-eat products” made from locally-available produce and employ women in her neighbourhood. “These women wanted to become economically independent. But because of the restrictions in a patriarchal set-up, they were not in a position to do anything on their own. They told me that if I started something, they would come to work for me,” recalls Ambika.

She launched her enterprise by selling curry powders, and flours to make breakfast dishes such as idiyappam, idli, dosa and puttu as well as different varieties of sun-dried wafers ( kondattams). “But it is an immensely competitive field and I had to come up with something new. That’s how I ended up experimenting with different kinds of flour to make puttu and products made from drumsticks,” she explains.

Puttu, a breakfast staple, is usually made with rice flour. Dry Mix has 10 types of puttu flour with rice flour as a base. There is flour with carrot, beetroot, banana, green gram, jackfruit, jackfruit seed, corn, peanut, ragi and njavara rice.

As for drumstick products, there is powder, rice flour and soup mix made from drumstick leaves. They were launched in August 2021 by Minister for Agriculture P Prasad. “A customer had asked for drumstick leaves powder. Around the same time, a friend had inquired if I could help with making a dish in the colours of our National Flag for a competition in his ward’s school. By then I was already experimenting with manufacturing drumstick powder. Once I tested it with my regular customers, I was confident about launching it. My friend’s child made puttu in the colours of the flag and won first prize as well!” she says.