From desert to dessert, dates to sweeten snacks

Rajkot: Mouth fresheners made from Kutch’s famed desi dates (khajoor) are helping stave off bad breath. But in the coming days, sweet tooths would be able to gorge on ice creams, cookies, and juices made from humble dates.
Farmers have actively started exploring methods of adding value to the dry dates by making powder and juice with the help of the Date Palm Research Centre at Mundra run by Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University (SDAU).
Vikramsinh Jadeja, president of Dates Palm Growers Association, said “We are in talks with some of the local companies making ice creams, biscuits, and baby food. We had supplied them with one sample of dry dates powder but they wanted it finer and smoother. We have sent the dry dates to the university to produce the powder with the required parameters. If they like the sample, we will buy machines to make the power in bulk.”
The shelf life of the fruit is four to five days as a result of which the farmers don’t get satisfactory returns.
The indigenous dates are grown using seeds and there are several decades-old trees in this region.
Unlike fruits like mango, the taste and size of fruits of all trees vary because the existing plantations have grown using seeds and not by grafting. SDAU has a pulverizer machine to process several food products. However, it is costly and farmers can afford to buy only if they get substantial orders.
Kapil Sharma, an assistant research scientist at the Mundra institute, said “Dates are highly nutritious but making a fine powder from them is difficult due to the high sugar content. Therefore, we need a specialized pulverizer for making powder without losing the sweetness and increasing the quantity. Once the ice cream and biscuit makers pass the sample and place their orders, farmers can buy such machines with the financial help of some NGOs.”
Sharma added, “We are also exploring the process of making juice from dates. The dates have seeds, so we need a specialized machine that separates and crushes them. We have issued a tender for the requirement of this kind of machine.”