India Food Stats

Gulkand is a sugary preserve made of rose petals. It is a popular, deeply aromatic delicacy widely consumed across the Indian subcontinent. The word originates from Persian, where gul means rose and qand means sweet/sugar. Essentially, it is a traditional rose petal jam . Image: Open Food Facts What Exactly Is It? Gulkand is made by layering fresh, fragrant rose petals (traditionally Damask or desi roses) with sugar or honey in a glass jar. The jar is then left out in the sun for several weeks to naturally ferment and cook, turning the mixture into a thick, sweet, and highly flavorful paste. No artificial additives needed. Rose petals are the core ingredient. High-quality versions use fragrant petals almost exclusively, sometimes with minor additions like cardamom, saffron, or fennel for depth. The petals provide the signature rosy flavor, color, and bioactive compounds. The slow sugar infusion creates a unique semi-solid texture — petal pieces suspended in a fragrant syrup — tha...

Gluten is a family of structural protein s found naturally in certain cereal grains, most notably wheat, barley, and rye. Gluten isn't just one single molecule. In wheat, for example, it is made up of two primary sibling proteins: Gliadin : This protein gives dough its extensibility (the ability to stretch without breaking). This is also the specific protein component that triggers a reaction in people with Celiac disease. Glutenin : This protein gives dough its elasticity (the ability to bounce back and maintain structure). When you mix flour with water and begin to knead it, these two proteins link up to form a sticky, elastic, web-like network. 🍞 Why Food Manufacturers Love It Gluten acts as a natural binder or "glue" (which is actually where the word gluten comes from in Latin). The Trapping Effect: When yeast ferments the sugars in bread dough, it releases carbon dioxide gas. The elastic gluten network traps these gas bubbles, allowing the bread to rise and giving i...

Two Brothers Organic Farms is the brainchild of two banker-turned-farmers who ditched cushy city jobs to fix what they saw as a broken food system. The Founders: Satyajit and Ajinkya Hange Satyajit Hange and Ajinkya Hange are fourth-generation farmers’ sons from the small village of Bhodani near Pune, Maharashtra.  Like many ambitious kids, they left the village for better opportunities. Satyajit studied Economics, got an MBA from Pune, and spent about a decade in banking (Kotak Life Insurance, Citicorp, DBS). Ajinkya studied computer science, earned his MBA from Indira College Pune, and put in around four years at HDFC and HSBC. Solid, respectable careers with good salaries and city comforts. Then, around 2012–2014, the pull of home got too strong. The brothers realized the food they were eating no longer tasted like the stuff from their childhood. So they quit their jobs, moved back to the family farm, rolled up their sleeves, and started learning regenerative farming the hard wa...

Aditi Handa is the no-nonsense, sourdough-obsessed co-founder of The Baker’s Dozen who decided that India’s daily bread deserved better than the chemical-laden, 20-ingredient monstrosities dominating supermarket shelves.  Trained at serious places — Diploma in International Bread Baking from the International Culinary Institute in New York and Patisserie from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris — Aditi could have easily stayed in the “gourmet” lane and charged premium prices to people who post their avocado toast on Instagram. Instead, she and her husband Sneh Jain started The Baker’s Dozen in 2013 in Prabhadevi, Mumbai with a radical (for India at the time) idea: make real sourdough bread an everyday essential, not a special-occasion flex. She’s the woman who dragged artisanal sourdough out of fancy restaurants and elite home-baker WhatsApp groups and shoved it into kirana stores and common households at prices starting around ₹40. She started small, educating skeptical “aunties” by literall...

India is the world’s largest importer of edible oil , running a massive deficit to keep its kitchens running. Here is how the country went from self-sufficiency to a 60% import dependency, told through the numbers. The Macro Picture: A ₹1.72 Trillion Bill The Fiscal Shock: In FY26, India shelled out ₹1.72 trillion to import cooking oils. The Comparison: This massive import bill is higher than the Union government’s entire annual budget for the farm sector (₹1.59 trillion). The Dependency: India currently relies on foreign markets for 60% of its total cooking oil requirements. Palm oil alone commands a staggering one-third of all oil consumed nationwide. Image: Mint The Consumption Boom 1980–81: The average Indian consumed less than 4 kg of cooking oil per year . 2021–22: Annual per capita consumption skyrocketed to nearly 20 kg , fueled by a consumer shift toward "pure," odorless, colorless, and solvent-extracted refined oils. The 30-Year U-Turn The Golden Era (Early 1990s):...