Nagpur: Vidarbha needs Cold chains for Food Preservations nearly one third of harvested food in India is wasted before consumption, valued in excess of Rs.150,000 Crores per year. Vidarbha region in particular with logistics advantages needs series of cold chain facilities for food preservations, controlling losses on perishables along with approved preservatives to meet the Zero Hunger target by 2030, said Shyam Laddha, CEO of Vasudhara Dairy (Manufacturing outfit of Amul), while delivering the keynote address as chief guest of the Seminar on “Current trends in Food Preservations” organized by Agro Food Processing & Rural Development Forum of Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA) at VIA Auditorium, Nagpur.
Dr Madhukar Bhotmange, Retd HoD of Food Technology LIT Nagpur, during his presentation as the subject matter expert, highlighted and emphasized the role of Natural Food preservatives like common salt, Sugar, Citric Acid etc. in food preservations. The consumer trend is to procure Food items with longer self-life, free from Microbial contaminations. Preservatives slow down the decomposition of food products caused by microbial contaminations, thereby enhancing longer self-life, said Dr Bhotmange while delivering a detailed lecture on preservatives as applicable to Secondary and tertiary processing of Food products.
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15 july 2025
Amongst available Food Preservatives like Potassium Metabisulfite, normally used for Fresh fruits and vegetables, Potassium Sorbate popular for bakery products, Sodium Benzoate for acidic foods, Sodium Nitrite as preservative and color stabilizers in Fish and meat products, Potassium Permanganate and Sodium Permanganate are in good demand now, said Sanjay Kulkarni, Managing Director of Magnesia Chemicals, while speaking as the Guest of Honour.
Potassium Permanganate & Sodium Permanganate, both are powerful Oxidizing Chemicals with versatile uses like decontamination of Fruits and vegetables, Air Purification, Water treatment, Aquaculture, Poultry fumigation, Warehousing fumigation, Container fumigation, to name a few; said Dr Satish Jagtap, Managing Director and Mathews Jacob, Director of Arista Chemicals during a joint presentation on the subject. Both Potassium Permanganate & Sodium Permanganate are also used as Ethylene scavengers in ripening chambers of fruits.
VIA noticed a balanced gathering of participants including senior Food Processing Industry Professionals, Budding entrepreneurs, NABL Laboratories, Researchers in Food Preservations including renowned Faculty from reputed Institutes like LIT, University Post Graduate Pharmacy Department, LAD, Tuli and Tirpude Institutes. Innovative Agro Food Processing entrepreneurs – Kamal Narayan Seetha, Sagar Shah, Col Vinod Marwaha and Dr Anwar S Daud were felicitated by the Chief Guest during the program for their outstanding contribution in the field.
Earlier, R B Goenka, former Vice President of VIA, shared his experiences about agro farming. Shachi Mallick, Convener – VIA Agro & Food Processing Forum and Kapil Sahoo, Project Director jointly conducted the program, while Kiran Gokhale proposed the vote of thanks. Prominently present were Laxmikant Padole, Sanjay Sinha, Dr Rina Saha, Dr Kirty Sirothia, Shipra Dixit, Aniruddha Ansingkar, Utkarsh Khopkar, Dr Sugandha Garway, Ajay Deshpande, Mukund Gadgil, Shrikant Gudadhe, Sunil Mundada, Siddharth Shah.
Subsequently the participants went for Amul Plant visits to understand various unit operations in Food Processing Industry.
