India Food Stats

Coimbatore-made Wet Grinders popular in India for making Idly & Dosa batters are also widely used and sold across Europe for chocolate making (as melangers/refiners). This humble kitchen workhorse from Tamil Nadu has quietly powered two very different food traditions — one rooted in South Indian homes and the other in the global artisanal chocolate boom. The journey is fascinating: the same granite stones that transform soaked rice and urad dal into silky, fermented batters are now refining cocoa nibs into smooth, flavorful chocolate. It can also be used to whip up peanut butter! Born for Idli and Dosa Coimbatore wet grinders were invented in the 1950s to ease the back-breaking task of hand-grinding rice and lentils. PB Krishnamurthy of Coimbatore is credited with the invention of the Coimbatore Wet Grinder. As the story goes, one morning when his mother couldn’t make the dosa batter due to a backache, Krishnamurthy decided to invent an appliance that would make grinding the ...

High cocoa prices have triggered a wave of “reformulations” — the industry’s polite term for recipe changes across the U.S. chocolate market. The familiar “milk chocolate” label (a term regulated by the FDA) is quietly being replaced by the more flexible “chocolate candy.” Over the last decade, climate change has added six extra weeks of extreme heat every year to most West African cocoa-growing regions. The result? Declining yields and rising prices. Major players like Nestlé have saved more than $500 million by adjusting recipes in response to the cocoa and coffee price surge. To cut costs, companies are swapping cocoa butter for vegetable fats, using compound coatings, and adding emulsifiers like E476 (polyglycerol polyricinoleate) to stretch limited cocoa supplies. Others are bulking up bars with sugar or chunky add-ins or even switching to cheaper beans and different manufacturers. Chocolate Standards: A Global Contrast Source: Surbhi Bhatia U.S. (FDA): Milk chocolate must contai...