STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 35 Tea expertise. Use that knowledge to your benefit. With our outstanding experience in tea buying and blend development, we offer you high-quality teas, sophisticated for- mulations and latest tea innovations. Independently. Personally. Since 1992. Get an impression of us: www.kktee.de KSC's Padmanabhan and fellow growers promote multi-cropping and or- ganic farming. The group has developed its capabilities to act as a marketing platform. They offer tasting sessions in big cities in south India, introducing fine Nilgiris teas to consumers. These events are held at luxury hotels and promoted as premium events. Another outlet for growers is the government-run cooperative, Indco- serve, set up in 1965. Throughout India, tea cooperatives have made little progress over the years, for a variety of reasons. But Indcoserve has kept going and lately begun to thrive. It has 30,000 small farmers as members and 16 factories that buy green leaf from them. The coop's main market is the government's nationwide Public Distribution System, which supplies essen- tial goods to low-income consumers at subsidized prices. Indcoserve got a boost when the Indian Administrative Service sent Supriya Sahu to work as its head. She upgraded its factories with better operations, protocols, and certifications. She add- ed a new revenue stream by creating a retail brand for Indco. She promoted tea through tea houses and trucks, or tea vandis, catering especially to the Nilgiris's numerous tourists. Large estates are working on their own retail products. One of the most popular brands from Nilgiris is Avataa, from the Billimalai Tea Estate. In 2012, it started producing specialty tea, adding white tea and oolongs to its portfolio. The com- pany invested in special clones and tea varietals. However, despite a decade spent in building a retail bellwether, Aavataa's managing director, G. Udayakumar, says, it is not a large part of the business. To cope with labor shortages, estates like Craigmore have turned to mechanization. It is now 50% mechanized, which during the peak season of April to June has helped increase productivity and efficiency. Initiatives and ventures by specialty growers, innovative estates, and collectives might not have made a big impact yet. But if they persist and grow, they will help farmers gain bigger mar- kets and better prices. To avert the downward spiral witnessed in the tea industry in Darjeeling, Nilgiris grow- ers will need to keep working. As discussed in STiR's October/November 2022 issue, there are many ways in which the tea sector can improve its prospects: upgrading production, emphasizing certifications, linking up tourism, selling direct to consumers, promoting the GI, and so on. Band- ing together is especially crucial. There's hope, but also urgent need.

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