Coconut cream in place of coconuts to address shortage

By Huzefa Aliasger

Coconut cream which is now only an export product will be released to the local market to address the coconut shortage in the market, an official said.

Coconut prices have soared in the market these days in the midst of a shortage.

Chairman of the Coconut Development Authority Shantha Ranathunga said that his office plans to introduce coconut cream in the local market, a product currently meant exclusively for export only at the moment. Coconut cream is produced from desiccated coconut, which tastes exactly like coconut.

He said the need for coconut cream as an alternative to coconuts is that “when coconuts are used in households, there is wastage." However, he said coconut shells, paring, coconut water and residue from scraped coconut after squeezing for milk are wasted in domestic households when nuts are used. However, he said these could be used for various other export products when nuts are used for products such as cream, milk or powder at industrial level.

“When the scraped coconut is squeezed for milk manually, there is a lot of residue wasted. Still, this wastage can be reduced to some extent when it is done through mechanical blending. When it is done at industrial level, it can be reduced further. Then, there is another advantage. Once edible meat in nuts is taken, shells are left. Those can be exported as activated carbon. Coconut paring (the brownish outer covering of coconut kernel serving as a protective layer) is also used for another export product. Even residue after coconut meat is ground is used for low-fat desiccated coconut,” he said.

The price hike of coconut is attributed to the shortage in supply and an increase in demand in the export market.

The introduction of coconut cream is expected to increase export revenue by increasing the supply of coconuts to export industries to meet high demand.

He said ‘coconut cream’ will be available in glass jars in the market.