Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/658240
20 STiR tea & coffee industry international / Issue 2, 2016 (April/May) estate and director and c.f.o. Kamal Baheti says the company is waiting to see how this pilot program functions and what impact it has on the cost of electricity production. Goodricke's managing director A N Dingh explained that in West Bengal the company has set aside an acre of land for solar installations and is also planning to install panels at its estates in Assam and Dooars. The panels will be most useful in the dryer sunnier months from December to May. Sarangi Chairs India Tea Board In February Santosh Sarangi chaired his first meeting of the Tea Board of India Sarangi IAS joint secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was assigned additional charge of the post of chairman of the Tea Board of India. He will hold the position till the post is filled or further orders are given by the ministry. The first board meeting of the newly constituted. It has been a long wait for a perma- nent chairman of the statutory body and it is to be hoped that the myriad problems of the industry would be resolved without any further delay. Ratan Tata Funds Teabox Teabox, established in Siliguri, Assam in 2012, has secured the financial backing from industrialist and investor Ratan Tata. The sum was not disclosed. Teabox was founded by Kaushal Dugar to sell premium specialty teas from Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri, and Nepal to tea lovers in 93 countries. Major markets for Teabox are the US, the EU, and the Middle East, and 95% of its revenue comes from outside India. The company has developed a very efficient supply chain model that allows the delivery of tea very quickly to its foreign customers. In one year, the company has grown by two and half times and now plans to use the Tata funds to expand into new markets and grow its presence in existing markets. Ratan Tata was chairman of the Tata Group in 2000 when it acquired U.K.'s Tetley Tea and, says Dugar, "We have grown up admiring and respecting his vision and business acumen on scaling the Tata Group to a global level. His guidance and tremendous experi- ence in the tea industry will surely help us grow Teabox to be the global premium tea brand from India." JAPAN Calbee's Zeitaku Matcha Chips Japanese snack food maker Calbee Inc. has launched a line of green tea choco- late-covered potato chips. Calbee's Zeitaku Matcha ('Luxurious Matcha') chips are made with Uji matcha and, instead of dusting the ridged deep-fried potato slices with the tea powder, the tea is infused into chocolate which is drizzled over the chips. The potatoes are cut very thin and the matcha chocolate drizzle is applied to one side of each chip, giving just enough sweetness without overwhelming the normal salty character of the savory snack. The flavor of the matcha comes through after the salty sweetness and gives the chips a refined aromatic, delicately bitter aftertaste that makes them very Moorish. As with some of Calbee's other novelty products, these green tea chips will only be available for a limited time. Right, Kaushal Dugar, Ratan Tata, and Rohan Jahagirdar Matcha flavored potato chips MALAWI Rain Brings Hope Heavy rainfall in the Thyolo and Mulanje regions of the country in February brought back hope to the Malawi tea farmers after very dry weather in December and January. The lack of rain meant very low yields over recent months but both of these important districts received four or more days of continuous rain with more scattered showers following. During the period November to January 2016, between 20% and 40% less rain than usual fell and, due to the ongoing drought, Malawi's Limbe auctions sold only 1.1 million kilos of tea from July to October 2015, compared to 1.7million kilos sold in the same period of 2014. The Limbe auctions during the last few months of 2015 were the worst ever experienced in the country and fort- nightly instead of weekly trading had to be introduced, with no trade at all at times. Now, with increased rain, business is getting back to normal and prices are higher than last year, a trend that is expected to continue. Rain eases Malawi drought