Famous for their taste, Indian mangoes are in high demand across the world, but for the first time, mangoes from the country’s eastern region are being sent to the Gulf

After succulent ‘Shahi litchi’ was exported from Bihar to the United Kingdom a few days ago, sixteen varieties of mangoes including three GI certified Khirsapati and Laxman Bhog (West Bengal), Zardalu (Bihar) are being exported to Bahrain commencing Tuesday.

These fruits have been sourced from farmers in Bengal and Bihar by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) registered exporter, DM enterprises, Kolkata and imported by Al Jazeera group, Bahrain.

APEDA, an Indian government undertaking, has been initiating measures to boost mango exports from the non-traditional regions and states. APEDA has been conducting a virtual buyer-seller meet and festival to promote mango exports.

Recently in a bid to increase mangoes exports to South Korea, APEDA in collaboration with Indian embassy, Seoul and Indian Chamber of Commerce in Korea, organised a virtual buyer seller meet. APEDA has recently organised a mango festival in Berlin, Germany.

There is a possibility of more exports of mangoes to South Korea this season. IFFCO Kisan SEZ has an agreement with Meejaim, South Korea for supplying 66 MTs of mango this season.

Due to the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, the export promotion programmes were not able to be organized physically. APEDA took a lead to organize a virtual meet to provide a platform to the exporters and importers of mangoes from India and South Korea.

For the first time in this season, India has shipped a consignment of 2.5 Metric Tonnes (MTs) of Geographical Indication (GI) certified Banganapalli and other variety Suvarnarekha mangoes sourced from farmers in Krishna & Chittoor districts of Andhra Pradesh

The mangoes exported to South Korea, were treated, cleaned & shipped from the APEDA assisted and registered pack-house and vapor heat treatment facility at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh and exported by IFFCO Kisan SEZ (IKSEZ).

This was the first export consignment sent by IKSEZ, which is a subsidiary of IFFCO, a multi-state cooperative with a membership of 36,000 societies.

Mango in India is also referred to as ‘king of fruits’ and referred to as Kalpavriksha (wish granting tree) in ancient scriptures. While most of the states in India have mango plantations, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka have a major share in total production of the fruit.

Alphonso, Kesar, Totapuri and Banganpalli are leading export varieties from India. Mango exports primarily take place in three forms: Fresh mango, mango pulp, and mango slice.

Mangoes are processed by the APEDA registered pack-house facilities and then exported to various regions and countries including the Middle-East, European Union, USA, Japan and South Korea.