he food processing business continues to promise plenty but it is a hope that has had limited realisation. Within this broad ambit, frozen foods make up a small segment. Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd (CFCL), part of the KK Birla group, is taking a shot at changing that. It has recently launched in Delhi, Ever Fresh, a range of frozen fruits and vegetables. And it has gone into business with a reasonably wide starting-up range of products: green peas, mixed vegetables, sweet corn, baby corn, broccoli, mushrooms and strawberry.

The Indian housewife is obsessed with �freshness�, even if what precisely that word means varies from one person to the next. But it certainly seems to suggest that it�s vegetable or fruit just off the farm. What chance do frozen products have? Says Deepak Kapur, vice president, food processing, CFCL, "What in consumer parlance is �fresh� has actually travelled 24-48 hours before it reaches the vendor. But for Ever Fresh vegetables such as peas, the vegetables are plucked fresh, transported from the farm in environmentally controlled vehicles, blanched and then each pea pod is frozen by IQF technology (Individually Quick Frozen) which captures the freshness in the quickest possible time."... more