Imphal, September 03, 2010: Manipur�s traditional fermented delicacies such as Hawaichar or Ngari or Soibum, etc.

will be available across the country and the globe once a commercial unit of the traditional fermented foods of the north eastern states is developed.

"We're trying to formulate a methodology to standardise the fermented foods of north east India-so that it could be available in a commercial scale beyond the region", Lokesh Deb,a pharmacology scientist of Institute of Bio-resource and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Takyelpat here said.

The issue was widely discussed in the presence of Dr Rajesh Kapur,advisor of Department of Bio-Technology (DBT),and Prof BL Jaikhani,senior consultant of NE region Biotechnology Project,during the DBT sponsored two day brainstorming workshop on �Traditional Fermented Foods of North East India� which concluded at IBSD campus on Friday.

On the concluding day scientists from the north eastern states excluding Mizoram and Nagaland decided to entrust IBSD, Takyelpat to formulate a comprehensive road map for the development of fermented fish and soya products while Dr JP Tamang, head of food microbiology of Sikkim university will lead a team to develop a data base on fermented food of the region besides taking up standardization moves of fermented non-soya vegetables.

Dr Rajesh Kapur of DBT in his concluding remark expected that traditional fermented food of the region would be made available in not less than 3 years time once the standardization and commercialization process is concluded.

According to IBSD�s pharmacology scientist Lokesh Deb, 80 percent of the country�s fermented food were produced for local consumption in the NE states.

The workshop which targets to develop value added food products through scientific research on the traditional fermented foods of NE India was attended by 20 scientists both from institutes outside the NE region namely Central Food Technology Research Institute CFTRI, Mysore, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai and from institutes within the NE region namely North East Institute of Science & Technology, Jorhat, IIT, Guwahati, Institute of Advance studies in Science Technology, Guwahati, College of Fisheries, Tripura, North East Regional Institute of Science & Technology, Itanagar, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Assam University, Silchar, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat and Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh.

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