What is Palm Dish?

These are dishes for serving food made out of areca nut leaves with the help of simple mechanical operation of equipment developed by 'DEEPAM'.

The plates are made without application of any chemical or chemical process.


Salient features

Substitute for Plastic /Aluminium Dishes

Arecanut leaf plates are ideally suited for serving food items and it has been certified by Central Food Technological Institute at Mysore, in India (A Govt of India concern.).It is a product with superior qualities like fiber strength, Bio-degradable, ideal for buffet lunch, non- toxic etc. over plastic/aluminum plates used for serving food.

Deepam Triple Advantage Project

After years of research Deepam palm Dish has developed a scheme titled 'DEEPAM TRIPLE ADVANTAGE PROJECT' this project aims at generating 3 lakh fresh employment opportunities to unemployed rural women and youths in India by encouraging them to set up arecanut leaf plate making units in areas where arecanut is grown.



In India, arecanut grows in an area of 4.85 lakh hectors. Total number of standing arecanut tree in India is estimated as 660 million numbers. These trees shed 5320 million leaves every year of which 4250 million are available as raw material for plate making units. A plate making unit requires 70,000 leaves per year. In other words the annually available leaves would be sufficient to meet the entire raw material requirements of over 60,000 plate making units.

Each plate making unit would generate 5 fresh employment opportunities for 300 days in a year with each person earning Rs 120- 150 per day. Thus the 60,000 units that can be set up would generate over 3 lakh fresh employment opportunities and will create an "Employment Revolution in rural India" At present arecanut leaves are treated as agro waste by farmers in India. However the effective use of these leaves for producing the value added dishes will naturally make this agro waste an important raw material for which the farmers will fetch a price. It will be an additional income to areca nut farmers.

With a view to ensuring smooth and profitable running of units established with `DEEPAM' technology, Deepam Palm Dish has undertaken the responsibility of buying back and marketing of all the quality plates produced by these units. This arrangement relieves the units of the responsibility of marketing, for which they have no expertise or network.

 

Areca nut palm leaf plates can be a major instrument for reducing pollution caused by the extensive use of plastic plates for serving food items during festivals, celebrations, get together etc. as unlike plastic/aluminium, palm dishes are bio-degradable. Moreover, the cut pieces of palm leaves generated during the manufacturing process will also cause no problem as this waste can be utilized either as substitute to fire wood or for producing vermese compost.