Cookies from Gujarat to flavour Canadians’ teatime

SURAT: Drift of warm scented cookies from Visdalia village, a nondescript tribal hamlet, located 60 km away from Surat on Kim-Zankhvav Road has wafted into nostrils all the way across seven seas in Canada.
The villagers here have bagged international attention with its baking skills, honed by the Surat forest department at the recently-started bakery unit of Visdalia cluster. Here, deft hands shape delectable items like chocolate cookies, coconut cookies, dry-fruit cookies, butter cookies and khari among others and run overtime to meet pre-ordered demand both at home and abroad.
Recently, this bakery received an order of 200 kg of bakery items from Canada!
“We have recently started a bakery unit at our Visdalia cluster unit to create livelihood for the local people. We first trained local people and now the bakery items are being sold under the brand name of ‘Van Shree’ and it has become an instant hit with local market. It’s goodness has spread overseas with them getting ‘foreign’ orders for the high quality bakery items as well,” said Puneet Nayyar, deputy conservator of forests, Surat division.
“We are going to tie up with bakeries in Surat to sell bakery items and soon start making cakes as well. Before embarking on the unit, we analysed the local market in Mandvi town and other villages, and found that bakery was needed. So we decided to start one,” added Nayyar.
“As of now the bakery units employs eight people and would add more as it increases production in the coming days,” said Vinit Prabhakar, head of Visdalia cluster.
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Started to grow with bamboo
Visdalia’s craft and furniture business is flourishing with its bamboo-based products. The bamboo unit even got recognition at the national level after it was recently selected among the nine clusters under the National Bamboo Mission.