Kannadiga women promote NK food in UAE

Hubballi: A group of women residing in the United Arab Emirates has floated their firm called Jawari Delicacy of North Karnataka to promote food from the region.
Promoting food from the region was their favourite passtime. Now, they are installing stalls in exhibitions and introducing north Karnataka food such as Jolad Rotti, Shiggavi chutney, chilli powder, millets, Belagavi Kunda and Karadantu to global customers. Their initiative has created a marketing platform for rural poor women in Haveri district who are manufacturing the food at Gaurishankar Food Industries, a woman-driven company in Shiggaon.
Gouri Talikoti and Ramya Halbhavi, team members of Jawari, told TOI from Dubai that their venture started on May 3 and they had got a good response from mainly Indian customers in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Azman and other cities in the UAE.
“We want to promote healthy food for UAE people and to help poor women of our region who are manufacturing these food items. We are choosing dry products. We also aim to keep Karnataka’s young generation in touch with North Karnataka foods,” they said.
Suma Anil Pujar, Shantala Gujjar and Meghana said the homemade taste and traditional-style products were attracting Indians of other states residing in the UAE. “We had exhibited the products in the recently held Basava Jayanti programme in Dubai. We are receiving orders for the products. We plan to sell the products in various exhibitions in the UAE. Our products include jolad, bajra and millets rottis, different chutneys, millet turmeric energy drinks, ready-to-cook millets, spices and North Karnataka sweets such as laddu, karadantu and kunda,” they said.
Shilpa Mantagani, the proprietor of Gaurishankar Food Industries (GFI) in Shiggaon, said: “Their initiative has been helpful for our women-entrepreneur MSME where we have appointed a dozen of rural women, some of whom are widows.”
Channayya Yemmetti Hiremath, the CEO of GFI, noted that the UAE women’s initiative is a model for all non-resident Kannadiga women to help their counterparts back home. “If all women, residing across the world think in this way, then indigenous products of Karnataka will be scaled up in the business and spread the indigenous culture” he said.