Surprised yesterday

Annikki and I went shopping yesterday and we finally landed up at our nearest supermarket to buy some provisions. Annikki saw some green grapes and as she picked up a plastic container, I was extremely surprised to see that it had been imported from India. Then I noticed there were grapes from two suppliers, packed in almost identical fashion and both were from India. So we bought one of each, 500 gm containers of seedless green grapes.





Reaching home, I checked to see where these companies were located. Both of them are located in Pune. Fresh Express Logistics is the brainchild of a Ranjit Patil, a highly qualified and experienced individual who has travelled extensively with a strong background in Horticulture and Post Harvest handling of perishables. A 1989 Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (B.E.) from the University of Poona, Pune, and a 1992 Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Georgia State University., in International Business, it appears that he still is on the visiting faculty of some well-known management Institutes.

The second company was Mahagrapes, in which Mr. Sopan Kanchan is the Executive Partner of Mahagrapes, Pune which is a co-operative marketing organisation for small farmers and the company has facilitated its farmers in producing good quality grapes. "MAHAGRAPES", is a co-operative partnership firm established on 19th January, 1991 with the help of the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board, Pune. The head office of Mahagrapes is located at Pune. Several Grape Grower Co-operative Societies are the member societies of Mahagrapes andf are located at, Solapur, Latur, Pune and the Nasik areas. The main objective of Mahagrapes is to boost the export of grapes for which facilities like pre-cooling and cold storages has been erected at each grape grower co-operative society. 'Mahagrapes' in the grape export, brand of Maharashtra's Grapes is well establish in the international market.

This took me back over 30 years when I used to visit (professionally) the grape growers in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, where yields of grapes per acre was phenomenal. I used to take back a few baskets of the really succulent grapes to Madras where Annikki and I lived. In those days there was not too much use of pesticides. As the years rolled on and the pests increased, it became impossible for me to eat grapes as my lips would swell up as a reaction to the pesticides which was absorbed in the skin of the grapes and could not be washed off.

Yesterday, I approached eating these Indian grapes with great care. First washing each grape thoroughly and then consuming one, then two to see if any reaction was likely.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was no allergic reaction. Some grapes were sweet and others sweet and sharp, but of extremely good quality. Annikki had chosen containers which had no damaged grapes. Unfortunately, before I could stop her, she had mixed the grapes from both containers, so I could not identify which were the sweater grapes.

I must comment that most of the containers in the shop had a lot of damaged grapes. This means that the handling and packing of the grapes is not quite perfect. It is likely that the sale in our local supermarket will not be quite as high as it could have been, as customers here are very sensitive to buying damaged produce.

The price we paid for each was around Euro 4 per kg., which is quite high for grapes in Oulu. Lidl, the German supermarket giant in Finland, offers grapes from many other location's around the world at substantially lower prices.

However, this seems to be a start for Indian fresh produce import to Oulu, and if successful, we may see more fresh Indian farm produce on Finnish supermarket shelves in the coming few years. Hopefully they will adhere to quality standards which would ensure a good price.