MUMBAI, India – Saskatchewan Pulse Growers hope Indian cooks, chefs and buyers will soon associate the logo Kandal, stamped on bags and packages of green lentils exported from Canada, as a safe, high quality food.
G. Chandrashekhar, editor ofThe Hindu Business Line,said Kanadal isn’t a brand but a quality assurance logo.
“If you find the logo, you know it’s top quality,” he said.
Kanadal is a combination of the words Canada and dal, the Indian word for cooked pulses, the most important food in the Indian diet. India grows about 12 to 15 million tonnes of pulses each year and Indians consume about 18 million tonnes of pulses per year, including more than $500 million worth of Canadian pulses.
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Saskatchewan, the major lentil growing area of Canada, hopes to tap into this market by replacing some of the two million tonnes of pigeon peas consumed each year in India with Saskatchewan green lentils.
A 10 percent replacement of pigeon peas with green lentils would mean 200,000 tonnes of Saskatchewan green lentils in Indian diets.
“India is a price conscious market. If Canadian green lentils are comparably priced, there will be buyers,” said Chandrashekhar, who has proposed a three-point strategy for entering the Indian market.
Key to the strategy is creating an awareness of the Kanadal logo among consumers.
“It’s not a brand name; it’s a quality assurance mark,” he said.
Part of the initial promotion would be customer cost savings. Extensive tests at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University show the green lentils can be substituted for other pulses, including the popular pigeon pea. Consumers can save 25 percent of the cost of pigeon peas by choosing the Canadian green lentils.
Chandrashekhar said the marketing strategy is for lentils to be used as a partial substitute for pigeon peas. Lentils could replace 20, 50 or 100 percent of the pulses used in cooking.
The second part of the strategy is ensuring Canadian exports adopt the Kanadal strategy. The dehulled, split green lentils exported from Canadian sellers would all need to meet the Kanadal certification.
“No one expected (this harvest) year to turn out so bad. One should have no regrets but have a plan and wait for an appropriate time to launch,” he said.
The third part of the plan would see local Indian entrepreneurs help develop the use of Kanadal in traditional food products. A two-year study of green lentils at Tamil Nadu proved lentils could easily be used as a replacement for pigeon peas in cooking.
“People are willing to try new products. Much will depend on the sales pitch,” he said.
“If they try it, consumers will use it.”
